I'm going to briefly explain the history of land mines. After tanks were invented during the First World War, antitank mines were developed as a countermeasure. In war, whenever a new weapon is developed, countermeasures are invariably developed.

I began supporting demining operations in 1994 when I found about butterfly mines, which were used in Afghanistan. They were called butterfly mines because when scattered from a helicopter, they fall from the air like butterflies. Because they are colorful and look interesting, children pick them up and while they are playing with them, the blasting caps blow off the children's fingers. After this, a nitric acid-like liquid inside the mines blinds them. The Soviet Union used these mines to show the Afghan resistance forces the consequences of their resistance. Facing this reality, I decided to develop land mine detection equipment.

I found that my support alone was not enough, and so I asked my mentor, Mr. Iida, to concentrate business resources to support this cause. Our purpose is to quickly clean up area littered with land mines and to return these lands to local people. Demining is a step in the process of cleaning up areas polluted with land mines, and the purpose is to recover these lands, thus allowing people to be independent.

There are 10 million land mines still buried in Cambodia. Since the end of the struggle between ruling powers and the subsequent civil conflicts, land mine casualties continue to mount.

Geo Search is located in Tokyo's Ohta ward near Kamata station on the Keihin-Tohoku line. It carries out research of hypogeal hollows in order to prevent road subsidence. Scanners loaded with high-tech equipment are run on the roads at night. These scanners identify potential hollows under the asphalt based on radar beam reflections. Mr. Tomita established this company in 1989. The United Nations has been interested in applying the technology of Geo Search, and visited the company in 1992 hoping to put this technology to use in the detection of antipersonnel land mines, which have numerous plastic parts and are difficult to locate using metal detectors.

Mr. Tomita assisted the UN in a developing equipment to find land mines using his company's technology. He focused attention on the fact that reflectivity varies depending on the materials the land mines are made of and this approach led to the development of the "Mine Eye" land mine detector. When compared with metal detectors, the mine discovery efficiency is markedly higher. Large companies, such as IBM, Sharp, Toyota and Honda, supported the development of this device. In addition to his work at Geo Search, Mr. Tomita started the Japan Alliance for Humanitarian Demining Support (JAHDS), which is beginning to achieve results. To date, JAHDS has removed 74 land mines from a 25-ha area in Rohar, a village of 900 people near Angkor Wat, thus allowing villagers to again use the land.

Thank you very much. Next, Mr. Iida will talk about why he has become involved in demining activities. I think the motivation may be similar to that which led him to establish the company Secom, despite the differences in the nature of these two ventures.
So while considering his position as the founder of a venture business, we'd like Mr. Iida to talk about how he came to support demining activities.

When people call me the father of venture business, I would rather be called the brother at best, but at the same time, as a so-called trailblazing pioneer of venture business, I think this title can't be helped.

I would now like to talk about the reasons that I decided to work on demining activities through JAHDS. I established Secom as a company focusing on "safety and security," and so I am both deeply interested in "safety and security" and heavily involved in it.

One day, I received a letter from Mr. Tomita. He wrote that we have to remove land mines, and I thought he seemed interesting and wanted to meet him. He explained the present situation and I felt that it was disastrous because butterfly mines are designed for children to pick up. After children pick them up and play with them, the mines explode. This is inexcusable, and I felt that we must remove land mines somehow. However, when we consider the various social contributions that companies have made to date, I feel that many companies regard social contributions as merely spending money. But to really make an impact, we have to take the time and physically work hard. By doing this, our endeavors can be better respected and lead to larger social contributions.

I'm a business person and I called various companies for support of these activities and most readily gave consent. These companies also want to make social contributions and they believe that companies are also citizens, and thus they work for society in many ways.

Those companies do not advertise how much they contribute for demining work. This is why you may not know about it. I would like to stress that many companies support this work not for benefits or advantages, but rather for nothing.

The reason I contacted other companies, as I mentioned before, is because I'm a business person, and I don't have any other resources available to me. However, Japan is willy-nilly a business society, as are the US and Europe, and as China is increasingly becoming. What is required is that companies participate in such social activities as citizens, which refers to not only contributing but also becoming actively involved in these organizations. Many companies ended up participating in JAHDS, and the UN was surprised because it turned out as one of the rare NPOs and NGOs which a large number of companies are involved with. The UN now believe that future NPOs and NGOs will be similar in structure to JAHDS in business societies, and they are eagerly discussing this. I therefore feel that the relationship between businesses, NPOs and social issues such as land mines is entering a new stage.

Thank you. As Mr. Iida explained, when companies usually support NPOs or NGOs, they give money and do nothing else. However, in supporting JAHDS, companies have used the Iida-style, in which companies provides their individual expertise. Therefore, what Secom did was to send their employee Mr. Shinichi Yamada, who spoke a short time ago, on loan. I am particularly interested in devising new methods for companies to cooperate practically with NGOs or NPOs.

I would therefore like to tell you not to think that what one student can accomplish is not much. If you have something that you want to do passionately and eagerly, it's important to do it without believing it's a waste. It's important to actually work hard without complaining all the time. From this point of view, the actions of Mr. Tomita may be very helpful for all of you. It takes more than money to move the world. Unfortunately, people generally think that business people only think about making money. On the contrary, business persons have hearts, and when there are things they want to do, they support these things seriously, and this happens more frequently today than in years past. It is important that you understand these things.

Some of you may have misunderstandings about working for NGOs or NPOs. If you participate in these organizations with your easy going way of thinking, for example because you can't get a job or because you work on an uncommitted "Freeter" basis, this is very different from the views of people in international NGOs and NPOs. In Europe and other places, the social positions of people who are fully active in such groups and leaders of the field tend to be higher. Next, Mr. Iida has some opinions regarding the human resources of NGOs and NPOs.

When you look at NGOs, NPOs or JAHDS, you may feel that they have social significance or that they are worth participating in. Companies also have social significance but this is easier to see in NGOs or NPOs. That's why you tend to think that you want to do such work. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Such work requires a lot of ability and if you lack social experience, that ability is unlikely.

So, what should you do to work for NGOs or NPOs as one of their human resources? First of all, build up your social experience. Otherwise, while working for NGOs or NPOs, others will have to take time out of their schedules to teach you, and this may interfere with daily operations. If you lack this social experience and you make a mistake, the repercussions will be greater because there tend to be fewer people working for these organizations. Working for NGOs or NPOs is not easy. However, I believe that you should participate in these groups, but after building up your social experience.

As Mr. Iida said, although I agree that NGOs or NPOs are the one of the sectors that will become more important in the future, you must be prepared to tackle it not with half measures, but as your lifetime commitment. At the same time, students may want to support JAHDS and want to know what they can do as students of Waseda University. Mr. Tomita, how can students support JAHDS?

I have a question for Mr. Tomita. You told us that it costs a lot to clear these contaminated areas, and I agree that costs a lot of money for technological development and personnel. I’d like to confirm something because I didn’t hear the details. How much does it cost to clear 1 m?

It depends on the area. For example, in Battambang, if the mines are buried every 50 cm, we cannot move forward at all. Generally, we can demine 1 m_ for 600yen, but this is a very rough estimate. The important thing is which costs each group covers. We are now asking people to pay for the demining operators in Thailand because we don’t have the resources to pay for everything. We are discussing a number of points, such as providing technical support, because it is important to share resources. However, only 2 of 60 countries where land mines are buried have their own fund for demining. Therefore, so many countries depend completely on us, but unless we improve this situation, our efforts will be limited. For example, it is cheaper to recruit farmers as local operators and thus costs can be reduced in this way. We are also considering renting equipment to various projects because we can reuse when the projects are finished.

You mentioned that you don't advertise because you don't do this work to gain benefits. I think that NGOs have roles as a spokespeople for people in Cambodia or Thailand. I think that's why you should advertise what you are doing in the media. What would you think about this?

You're right. That's why we tell people what we are doing with JAHDS, as we are today. We need to inform Japanese people of what JAHDS does. However, we believe that it's not beautiful for companies to say that they support certain causes or that they contribute certain amounts of money to various organizations. We believe that if a company wants to be appreciated through these advertisements, it can not be considered as genuine social contribution. However, we should remain deeply grateful to such companies. In Japan, when people receive contributions, they don't appear to appreciate them, which is wrong. When we receive contributions, we feel gratitude and clearly express our gratitude by saying "Thank you very much."

While listening to you, I'm feeling angry and sad at the same time. Land mines cost a lot of money and take a lot of effort to remove. On the other hand, people seem to scatter them without considering the long-term effects. Unless we do something to dissuade these people, we won't be able to keep up. Are you considering taking action to prevent the scattering of land mines?

I think preventive diplomacy is important. In other words, by eliminating conflict, we can prevent mining. At the same time, I think we must demine faster than others are able to lay mines. There are conflict areas where land mines are now being buried. Although the Ottawa Process (mine-ban treaty) was concluded in 1997, a number of countries have yet to fulfill their obligations. Making appeals to surrounding conflict areas to prevent fighting is what we can do.