IAC News
IAC News No.8, May 2013
Japan Society of Civil Engineers International Activities Center May 13, 2013 IAC News No.8
Looking Back at the Establishment of IAC
Looking Back at the Establishment of IAC (Dr. Eng. UEDA Tamon Senior Director,IAC)
One of the noteworthy events within JSCE in 2012 was the establishment of International Activities Center (IAC) in April 2012. After extensive discussions by the Strategic Task Force for Internationalization of Civil Engineering in Japan chaired by Prof Shigeru MORICHI, the JSCE Board of Directors approved the IAC establishment proposed by STF with full recognition of the importance of nternationalization. The establishment of IAC means not only the change in organizational structure of JSCE but also the enhancement of manpower and budget. International activities need information transfer among different languages and cultures and occasionally long distance travels. Without appropriate manpower and budget, internationalization cannot be advanced. The manpower and budget both became double (from two to four full-time officers and 2% to 4% of the total JSCE budget). Although these levels may not be high in comparison with similar organizations overseas, it was a great step for JSCE.
After the establishment of IAC, the followings are primary changes: (1) the quality/quantity improvement of information dissemination in English by new English website and publishing of monthly IAC newsletter, (2) the start of real exchange activities for collaborative works rather than simply exchanging visits, especially with Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Myanmar, and (3) the establishment of database of international members for better service through networking. If people in JSCE community, especially non-Japanese, could see those changes, IAC team would be more than happy.
Civil engineering is international in its nature. JSCE activity should naturally be international. Increased participation of non-Japanese in JSCE activities and joint activities with other AOC (Agreement of Cooperation) organizations is expected. JSCE has decided to further strengthen the manpower and budget of IAC in 2013. IAC team will put more efforts not only to serve the community in JSCE but also to collaborate with AOC. We look forward to hearing from you on IAC activities. You can write us at iac-news@jsce.org.jp or directly to me at ueda@eng.hokudai.ac.jp.
Information Networking Gr. : Greeting from the Leader
Eimitsu Tsurumaki (Leader, the IAC Information Networking Group)
JSCE’s activities are the very source of information, which produces one story after another every day. It is a good challenge for us the IAC Information Networking Group to catch interesting pieces of news from the sea of information, sort them out and deliver them to the JSCE members. We have determined to deal with this challenge in order to strengthen the industry-government-academia partnership, amid advancing social and economic globalization. While knowing that each member pictures his/her own goal to pursue, we as part of action-oriented IAC team is taking a firm footing toward the goal the IAC has set forth.
The first task is collecting the information which scatters all over the civil engineering community. It is not easy for us to pick up every piece of information even with our very best effort. We are recruiting IAC News reporters among the JSCE members who are engaged with several activities around the civil engineering field. Those reporters will collect news and write articles to share with the IAC News subscribers. We expect that their efforts will set us work in full throttle.
Besides the IAC News, the monthly JSCE Magazine is another information repository for the members. Although it will be able to pick up only a few pieces, we will carefully select the news from the repository which should be interesting and informative to the members and send it to the members overseas regularly. Meanwhile, we are planning to introduce IAC’s activities in the monthly magazine, taking up one page. In these ways, we will communicate with the members in and outside the country.
We will acquire two tools for communication with the members: the monthly IAC News (in both Japanese and English), and IAC News Extra. While continuing the IAC News to update the members with timely news and information once a month, we will cover a wider range of topics by publishing extra issues.
Moreover, our effort will continue to keep the JSCE website in English fresh and up to date, and to gain more IAC subscribers. Your support and cooperation will be greatly appreciated.
Please view and sign up for the IAC News subscription:
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/registration/international_student
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/registration/non-international_students
What's Happening
・May 8：The 18th National Convention on Civil Engineering, EIT (‘Bangkok, Thailand)
・May 17-18：The 3rd Joint Symposium: Lessons Learned from Recent Earthquake and Strategies for
Disaster Reduction with a special emphasis on Izmit Gulf Suspension Bridge & Gebze-Orhangazi Izmir Motorway Project (Istanbul, Turkey)
・May 27-29 ：The 1st International Conference on Concrete Sustainability at Toshi Central Hotel,Tokyo (http://www.jci-iccs13.jp/ )
・May 30-June 1 ： 57th ECCE General Meeting & ECCE Conference (Ordem dos Engenheiros,Lisbon, Portugal) (http://www.ecceengineers.eu/)
・June 10：A Special Lecture by Dr. Chiu-Hsing Yang, Minister Without Portfolio, Taiwan, R.O.C. (JSCE Hq,Tokyo)
・June 13-15：2013 MACE Annual Meeting (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia),
・ACECC 6th CECAR in Jakarta, Indonesia (August 20-22, 2013) http://committees.jsce.or.jp/acecc/6thcecar
Sept 4-7：2013 JSCE Annual Meeting in Chiba (Nihon University Tsudanuma Campus)
Updates
・The summary of feature articles in the JSCE Magazine is now on the JSCE website:
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine
・Concrete Committee International Newsletter No. 33
http://www.jsce.or.jp/committee/concrete/e/newsletter/newsletter32/index.htm
IAC News Subscription
IAC publishes the IAC News as one of tool to communicate with and share information with the members. In order to network widely, we would like to invite you, your friends and colleagues to become a subscriber to the IAC News. Please register online if you are interested in the IAC News: (http://committees.jsce.or.jp/s_iad/iac_news_e). We are looking forward to meeting you.
Registration form for IAC News subscription:
・Japanese :（http://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/node/31）
・English :（http://committees.jsce.or.jp/s_iad/iac_news_registration）
・English for those who have studied/ graduated from Japanese colleges and universities :
（http://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/node/30）
President's Mumbling
Networking of foreign students
International Activities Center (IAC) which was organized in April 2012 has the foreign students’ group. This group acts to build a network to connect the students who are studying now or studied before in Japan.
We think the network has at least three merits. First, for those who have studied in Japan and are taking active part in various fields all over the world, this network can be very beneficial because it covers the wide range of areas including government, universities and industries to find out the people who will be able to help their businesses.
Second, for students who are now studying in Japan, this network also can be profitable because it can offer the chances of future occupations.
Finally, for those who have plans to study outside of their home countries, this network can supply adequate information about studying abroad.
We distribute the civil engineering information in various fields such as government, academia, and industries through our homepage (http://www.jsce-int.org/) and international activities center news (http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/iacnews/7). We strongly recommend you to register now to International Activities Center through the form (http://www.jsce-int.org/taxonomy/term/10). We are pleased to deliver the IAC news every month. We are also planning to improve the IAC news to include the information of jobs, technologies, symposiums, government’s activities and various civil engineering projects.
We need your cooperation to utilize the network not only to use it for businesses or studies but also to build a bridge between your country and Japan.
Staff's Mumbling
I have joined the IAC as a staff member since this April. My first assignment was editing this issue and I had a hard time to do the English version particularly. I’m convinced that this newsletter as well as the JSCE website is one of major communication tools to liaison between the readers and us; therefore, I will do my best to make the newsletter more informative and interesting to the readers. Your help, support and encouragement will help me go on. Thank you. (T)
【Comments and Questions】
Please send us your feedback and comments to help us improve the IAC news. We look forward to hearing from you.
JSCE IAC: iac-news@jsce.or.jp
