WSC Members’ Fund Contribution Lecture “Learning about Diversity and Gender Equality”
“Promoting Female Participation and Diversity in Business”
Friday, June 17, 2016
Speaker Ayaka Asami
Dentsu Inc., Business Creation Center, Future Co-creation Group 1
Organizer: Global Education Center; Office for Promotion of Gender Equality
Support: Student Affairs Section; Career Center; Disabled Student Services Office
▲ Ayaka ASAMI
Amidst the declining birthrate, aging population, greater multicultural coexistence, and other trends that are forcing society to change and adapt, companies in recent years have also been adapting by promoting greater diversity, diversity,from the standpoint of human resource utilization, risk hedging, opportunity loss avoidance, and new value creation.
Students, faculty, and members of the general public listened to Ayaka Asami describe how her own company has come to recognize the importance of “Diversability (diverse + ability),” whereby it seeks to understand, to connect, and to be responsive to the various individuals within it. In addition, the speaker shared her personal experiences of how she has sought to turn her minority status into a strength.
Participant Voices
In this day and age, when diversity has become a household word and people’s lives are changing so rapidly, it was truly appealing to hear the lecturer speak of how she has adopted a lifestyle in which she treats her minority status as a strength. She does not let the fact that she is hearing impaired deter her. On the contrary, she is active at the forefront of the business world, where she has turned her minority status into a strength. And through this public lecture she was able to convey her positive approach and independent thinking when it comes to her job.
Just because someone cannot hear, why should that affect his or her success in a job that emphasizes mental acumen? This was the speaker’s attitude when she went job-hunting. She has, for example, come up with a project for creating environments where sound is more easily picked up by those with hearing impairments, and this project is currently being implemented in cutting edge businesses.
In my life thus far, I have focused on those things I do not have and have worked to develop myself so that I can obtain them; however, this lecture drove home for me the importance of first carefully taking stock of what I do have before thinking about my future. By changing our perspective on things and seeking our own way of life, we can enrich our daily life, and I believe that this will be the key to living successfully in the coming era.
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sophomore HA
（by SANKAKU NEWS No.16）
