1st JUNBA Academia Summit & Symposium: Japanese Universities Pour Joint Resources into Silicon Valley Date: January, 2007 Summit Venue: Consulate General of Japan (San Francisco) Symposium Venue: Bio-X (Stanford University) Over the past three years Japanese universities have been flocking to California's Silicon Valley, aiming to harness some of the vast intellectual and venture capital flowing through the Bay Area. This rapid buildup has been driven by a profound shift in Japan's higher education system as well as a race for Japanese universities to assert themselves in advanced fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and robotics.
	The urgency behind this overseas push comes from education reforms that will convert Japan's national universities into self-supporting "national university corporations" over the next few years. Those universities have been compelled to substantially reorganize, giving their international divisions greater voice and flexibility. This in turn has prodded Japan's private universities, which have traditionally been more innovative, to ratchet up their international strategies as well.
	A magnet for both venture capitalists and research scientists, the Bay Area holds much allure for Japanese universities who have struggled to rapidly translate their top flight research into immediate and global applications. Their investments in oversea offices have already begun to pay concrete dividends through an increase in Bay Area startups with Japanese connections and successful academic conferences. One such example was the cross-disciplinary Biomedical Symposium co-hosted by Osaka University and the University of California San Diego in December.
	In 2005 eight of these universities established the Japan University Network in the Bay Area (JUNBA) to spark more collaborative research, exchange at all academic levels and corporate internship opportunities. JUNBA's current roster of expanding members include Osaka University, Kagoshima University, Kyushu University, Keio University, Tohoku University, Hosei University, Yokohama City University and Waseda University.
	This organization was formalized in January 2007, holding a university summit at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Presidents and other top officials from the eight JUNBA universities attended to discuss promising fields of research and education strategies for a global economy. On the following day, a nanotech symposium supported by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) was held at Stanford University's high-tech Bio-X building.
	To see more images, please visit our Innagural JUNBA Summit and Symposium slideshow.