2006 December 10 Sunday.
Today I went to this event at the Palace Hotel here in Asahikawa. The title at the top reads "Towards the future of the Network Society". See it! Ask about it! Touch it! (FREE). Public Lecture "Tourism and Information" Lecturer: Hokkaido University Graduate School (Tourism Information Academic Society Chairperson) Azuma Ohuchi PhD. You can also experience Microsoft's new Operating System WINDOWS VISTA at the same time (in another room) from 11:00 until 16:00. As you already know, from reading my blog on a regular basis, I am very much interested in promoting Asahikawa, and in fact, all of Hokkaido on this website. Therefore, my interest in attending this lecture was at a maximum. Before professor Ohuchi began his lecture at about 13:05, the Chairperson of the 旭川 ICT (Information & Communication Technology) 協議会 会長 古川先生 Mr. Furukawa gave a brief introduction of the main speaker. During that time, he said something that I didn't know before. He talked about which cities in Hokkaido are advanced in the IT industry. He said that Sapporo was number one. No big surprise there. Then he mentioned that Asahikawa was NOT number two, but number 5!!! Say what? Asahikawa is the second largest city in Hokkaido by population, but it's only number 5 in the area of IT businesses. I was very surprised to hear that, but I also sensed a big opportunity. Number two in Hokkaido for IT businesses is Muroran, followed by Hakodate and Tomakomai. Another interesting thing that he mentioned is that his organization's name; Asahikawa ICT really means; 「旭川 愛して」 I love Asahikawa too. That's why I have continued to live here since 1990. You can visit Asahikawa ICT's website at http://www.a-ict.jp Next, professor Ohuchi gave a fifty-something minute lecture about Information and Tourism. It was very interesting and informative. He emphasized the fact that the REAL POWER of digital information is that it can be copied an endless number of times, without losing any of the quality of the information. For example, if you make a copy of a movie DVD or a music CD, the copy will be just as clean and clear as the original. Also, any number of copies of the DVD or CD can be made from any other copy of that digital information, with absolutely no loss of quality. A simple but amazing fact about digital data. He also talked about many other things including the classic book written by Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave. I wanted to hear even more from the good professor, but he has many other things to do, and he had to get back to Sapporo. The lecture I heard today, gave me many new ideas, and topics for further research. I am very glad that I went to today's event. Thank you so much for having it.
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