Speakers

After receiving his M.S. from Kyoto University in 1972, he joined Asahi Kasei Corporation, where he invented the lithium-ion battery in the 1980s and completed a practical prototype. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019.

Andrew joined NEA in 2014 and invests in founders innovating in AI/ML, cybersecurity, fintech, frontier and deep tech, and technically differentiated software. Prior to NEA, he was a member of Blackstone’s M&A team. Prior to Blackstone, he co-founded Flicstart (acquired). Andrew serves on the Cornell University Council, the Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship @ Cornell, and is President Emeritus of the Cornell Venture Capital Club. He earned his master’s degree as a Schwarzman Scholar and his bachelor’s degree in economics and science of earth systems in engineering, Phi Beta Kappa, at Cornell University.

Caroline Winnett is Executive Director of Berkeley SkyDeck, UC Berkeley’s flagship startup accelerator. She led the creation of the $90M Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, a groundbreaking model that shares half of fund profits with the university. A serial entrepreneur, she co-founded NeuroFocus, the leader in neuromarketing, acquired by Nielsen. Caroline has been on several startup Boards, and currently sits on the Board of SkyCentrics. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees for Cal Performances. Prior to her career as an entrepreneur, Caroline was a professional concert violinist.
Caroline is a frequent speaker on innovation, entrepreneurship, and consumer neuroscience, and has been recognized with the Forbes 50 Over 50 and Bay Area Power 100 awards. Caroline holds an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She did undergraduate work at Brown University and she holds a Violin Performance degree from the Indiana University School of Music.

Christine Tsai is Founding Partner and CEO of 500 Global. Since co-founding the firm in 2010, she has led its growth to $1.9B in AUM and investments in more than 3,000 companies in 80+ countries. She has spent her entire career building and investing in Silicon Valley. Prior to 500, she was in product marketing and operating roles at Google and YouTube, launching and driving early go-to-market for products like AdSense, Google Analytics, YouTube syndication, and Developer Platform Tools.
Christine serves on the venture capital committee of AAAIM and is a member of YPO. She has been recognized by Gold House’s A100 List and named as one of 10 Women of Influence in VC by Private Equity International. Christine holds a B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a National Merit Scholar.

Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1978. In 1996, while still a student at the National Institute of Technology, Maizuru College, he founded Sakura Internet. In 2005, when he was 27, his company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market, and it is currently listed on the Prime market. Leveraging his own entrepreneurial experience, he has worked as a mentor and angel investor for numerous startups, and he has also been involved in guiding young entrepreneurs and student engineers as a project manager for the IPA Mitou Program. In addition to his duties as president, he serves as an outside director for several companies. He also dedicates himself to the development of the industry in a wide range of fields in order to promote Japan’s digitalization and accelerate the growth of startups as the chairman of the Software Association of Japan (SAJ), the chairman of the Japan Data Center Council (JDCC), the vice chairman of the Japan Internet Providers Association (JAIPA), a standing director of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives (chairman of the Global Venture Ecosystem Committee), a member of the Cabinet Office’s AI Strategy Council and its Expert Panel, and a member of various committees of the Cabinet Secretariat’s Japan Growth Strategy Council. He is based in Okinawa.

Yamazaki earned a Master of Engineering degree from the University of Tokyo in 1996 and began her career at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1999, qualified as a Soyuz flight engineer in 2004, and became a NASA-certified mission specialist in 2006.
In April 2010, Yamazaki flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery as a mission specialist on STS-131, an assembly and resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
After retiring from JAXA in 2011, she served as a member of the National Space Policy Committee of the Cabinet Office of Japan (2012–2022). She currently chairs the Subcommittee on Space Development and Utilization at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
In 2018, Yamazaki co-founded the Space Port Japan Association and has since served as its representative director, working to promote the space industry in Japan. Since 2021, she has been dedicated to educating the next generation as president of the Young Astronaut Club Japan. She also serves on the Council of The Earthshot Prize, launched in 2020 by the Prince of Wales and The Royal Foundation, to inspire a decade of action to repair our planet. She has served in roles such as General Manager of Vast Japan, which is involved in the development of commercial space stations since 2025. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

1979　BS, University of Tokyo
1981　MS, University of Tokyo
1981-2003　Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute
1986, 1987　Assignment to Tritium Systems Test Assembly (TSTA), Los Alamos, USA
1989-1991　National Laboratory, USA, As Japanese Team Leader under US-Japan Collaborative Program
1991　Involved in first DT campaign at JET, United Kingdom
1991　ITER Engineering Design Activity Team Member at JAERI
2001-2011　Editor, Fusion Engineering and Design Journal, Elsevier
2003-present Professor, School of Energy Science, Kyoto University
2008-2012　Director, Institute of Sustainability Science, Kyoto University
2009-2012　Chair of the ITER TBM Program Committee
2012-2017　ITER Program Committee, Japanese Representative
2014-2016　Board of Director Member, Atomic Energy Society of Japan
2017-present ITER TBM Project Steering Committee, Japanese Representative
2017-present Board of Director, Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research

Sakaguchi is currently a Distinguished Honorary Professor of the University of Osaka and a Specially Appointed Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC) the University of Osaka, Japan. He obtained an M.D. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1982 from Kyoto University, Japan, where he was trained as a pathologist and immunologist. After performing postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University as a Lucille P. Markey Scholar, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute. He returned to Japan in 1991 and continued his immunology research as the Head of the Department of Immunopathology at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo. From 1998 to 2011, he was a Professor of Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences Kyoto University and served as the Director of the Institute from 2007 to 2011. In 2011, his lab moved to the University of Osaka. He was elected to Foreign Member of National Academy of Sciences USA in 2012, and has been awarded many international prizes including Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley Award in 2004, Keio Medical Science Prize in 2008, Canada Gairdner International Award in 2015, the Crafoord Prize in 2017, the German Immunology Award in 2019, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2020, the Robert Koch Prize in 2020, and Debrecen Award for Molecular Medicine in 2023, and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2025. He received an honorary degree from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2019, the Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Government of Japan in 2009, and the Order of Culture, the highest accolade for Japanese scholars of humanities and natural sciences, from the Emperor of Japan in 2019.

Tennin Yan is QunaSys’ founder and Chief Executive Officer, where he leads the company’s strategy, product strategy and development to make quantum computing technology industrially useful. He has deep expertise in R&D and is specialized in quantum computer algorithms and applications. Tennin founded QunaSys in 2018 together with Prof. Keisuke Fujii with the goal to bring out quantum physics to the front stage and use it to tackle problems that cannot be achieved with conventional technology by actively taking advantage of quantum mechanics.

Dr. Teruo Fujii is the 31st President of the University of Tokyo (UTokyo). Prior to taking the President’s office in April 2021, he was the Executive Vice President in charge of finance and external relations for the university. He also served as the Director General of the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) of the university from 2015 to 2018.
He received his Ph.D. in engineering from UTokyo in 1993 and held research positions at IIS and RIKEN prior to becoming a professor of IIS in 2007.
Dr. Fujii was an advisor to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) from 2005 to 2007, the co-director of LIMMS-CNRS/IIS, a joint research laboratory between CNRS of France, and IIS, from 2007 to 2014, and the President of the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society (CBMS) from 2017 to 2019. He held the position of an Executive Member (part-time) of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan from March 2021 to February 2024. He has also served as the Chair of the Subdivision on Ocean Development of the Council for Science and Technology (MEXT) from February 2019 until February 2024. He was appointed as President of the Japan Association of National Universities in June 2025.
He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Asian University for Women in Bangladesh.
Dr. Fujii’s research specializes in applied microfluidics systems and underwater technology.

President/CEO, Organization of Future Medicine
Graduated from Osaka University Faculty of Medicine in 1980. In 1989, he studied in Germany as a Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Department of Cardiac Physiology and the Department of Cardiac Surgery of the Max Planck Institute.
He later served as Professor and Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, and subsequently as Dean of Osaka University Faculty of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine. During his tenure, he also led the implementation of next-generation medicine as Director of the Center for Future Medical Innovation and Director of the International Medical Center at Osaka University Hospital.
He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2020 and has received numerous other awards, including the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Award for Industry-Academia-Government Collaboration and the Japan Medical Association Medical Award. He is a globally recognized authority in cardiovascular surgery and regenerative medicine, and will serve as President of the 32nd General Assembly of the Japan Medical Congress in April 2027.