Time for the Day 2 recap of the Oneness Asia Leaders Summit. We’re halfway through right now! The day didn’t start off so well though, because despite staying up late to do the poster, I left it (and my name tag) at home, and had to double back to get it. I managed to contact my team leader to say that I’d be late, but in the end, I managed to make it before the session started (I was about five minutes late but they hadn’t started yet).
I still forgot my name tag though.
The poster session was way more interesting and less nerve wracking than I thought. I’m not good with crowds for long periods of time, but most of the interaction was one-on-one, so it wasn’t too bad. I ended up with a lot of new Facebook friends hahaha. And my lack of a name tag has been overlooked so far (;
All the students here are so smart, and they have such big dreams! I really admire them, and I hope they keep holding on to them. The worst thing (I feel), would be to compromise on their dreams, perhaps by choosing safety and stability, and gradually lose what makes them unique. But for now, I have a lot of faith in them. They’ve been saying it since yesterday, but I finally understand – these really are the leaders of tomorrow.
In the afternoon, we had the first subcommittee session.. Mine was Resources (Energy) today.
First, we had to discuss the readings, but it was so difficult barely anyone understood it, even the engineering student in our team. What to do?
Turns out the student from Uzbekistan knows a lot about the energy problems in Central Asia, and coupled with my obsession with inserting IoT into everything, we managed to do a presentation. And as team leader, I was the one presenting. And the first team.
If you’re interested in the gist of our presentation, basically, a big problem in Central Asia is that the energy plants are way too old. But to build new ones would require a very high initial cost, which is quite difficult. So, whatever solution it is, it has to be scalable. We considered microgrids and Virtual Power Plants, but one problem with this solution is that it’d eventually require intergovernmental cooperation, which might be a little difficult. A short term solution would be to increase the efficiency of the use and/or distribution of the energy, but that would still require Big Data and inserting IoT into everything.
After the presentations, we had the talk by the expert lecturer, which last doubled the original length. It was actually really interesting, because the speaker explained the energy situation in a very easy to understand way. And his English was really good too. Who says Japanese are bad at English?
After the Q&A session, we were given like 15 minutes to gobble our bento dinners, then we set off to Tenjin for the live music event!
It was kinda cool seeing the Oneness Asia name on the sign hahaha. My first live too!
We got free entry and one drink.
Oh, and I thought it was pretty unusual (is it? I don’t know haha) to see a few elderly men in suits (I think they were representatives from our sponsors?) talking, so I snapped a photo. Good thing too, because after that, they sort of banned photos :p
The first act was a guy who could imitate voices. I didn’t really know most of the songs, but his We Are the World was good!
The second band was a Visual Kei band, which would mark my first experience with the genre and possibly the first time I lost part of my hearing. It was just so loud.
I’m not very sure VK is not my thing. I probably spent more time wishing they adjusted the bass and drums, plus wondering if the lead singer was a man or woman than actually listening hahahaha.
The third, and last, band was… I don’t know, a normal one? I enjoyed them the most though. I was standing with two people I just met (I met the girl while on the train, and the guy is an acquaintance of the girl hahaha) and somehow we ended in the front, so we joined the jumping crowd.
PEOPLE I AM TOO AWKWARD FOR CROWDS
I felt like I was jumping out of time, and like my hand waving was weird too? I don’t know.
But I kinda got the hang of it at the end, I hope? I was certainly jumping a lot more and having fun hahahaha.
Plus the third band was really funny. They’re from Osaka, so the lead singer and the guitarist did some jokes, and the guitarist ‘taught’ us how to wipe our noses ‘unobtrusively’.
Plus, there was a Glico song, in honour of Osaka.
Once the set ended, I quickly made my way back, because I’m tired and want to sleep. Until tomorrow!