JLGC News & Blog

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) announced its new initiative for foreign FinTech companies with an interest in expanding to Tokyo called the “Accelerator Program – FinTech Business Camp Tokyo.” TMG is preparing a new plan which can be termed as the “Financial System Reform in Tokyo – Tokyo’s Big Bang” in order to regain the status of Asia’s No.1 international financial city, and this new plan will be announced this autumn. Prior to the announcement of the new plan, TMG made public its summary titled “Interim Report on Policy for ‘Global Financial City Tokyo’” (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Report’) on June 9. In this Report, TMG announced the launch… Read More »The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Accelerator Program – FinTech Business Camp Tokyo

Background The popular image of New York City, aside from Central Park, is usually of towering office buildings in Manhattan or densely packed brownstones in Brooklyn. In reality, though, there are considerable amounts of open land in the five boroughs, not all of which is parkland. Increasingly, some of this land harkens back to a time when the city had many working farms and grew much of its own food. Now, however, growing food is about much more than simply growing food. New York City was formed through the consolidation of numerous scattered cities, towns, and villages in 1898. For most of its history, large parts of the area that… Read More »Urban Agriculture in New York City – Part 1: Roots

We attended a briefing and training workshop recently on New York City programs for its immigrant communities, co-hosted by the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs and the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs, along with the New York Public Library. The session was primarily for consular staff to learn about these programs and how they can partner with the City to inform their constituent communities about available services and facilitate access to them. Representatives from several consulates attended, including Switzerland, Ukraine, Bolivia, and Angola. International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena opened the session along with Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Nisha Agarwal and Ms. Caryl Soriano, head of the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the NYPL.… Read More »New York City Focuses on Inclusion

Shizuoka prefecture calls for applicants to the international opera competition. Please see the following link for the details. http://www.suac.ac.jp/opera-en/

As you may know, we posted previously about the project “PEACE ARCH HIROSHIMA” . Today, we would like to announce that the website is updated! You can check the recent information and even get more through this. Please see the attached file and check it out! Peace Arch Hiroshima

As we’ve reported before, CLAIR has been gathering videos from current and former JET participants through the JET Program Video Contest. Recently, a panel of judges consisting of experts in a variety of related fields has decided the 10 winners of the contest in Tokyo. Congratulations to all of the award recipients, and thank you to everyone who participated in the contest! The 10 winners will be presented with their awards and prizes at the JET Program 30th Anniversary Ceremony, to be held on 7 November, 2016. The award-winning videos, as well as the other submitted videos, can be viewed on the JET Program’s website at http://jetprogramme.org/en/videocontest/. Please enjoy all… Read More »Results of the JET Program Video Contest

We received a tour of the new Shelby White and Leon Levy Water Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which had its grand opening on September 15th. It is a 1.5 acre wetland and riparian environment that forms the heart of the Water Conservation Project, a series of improvements at BBG to increase sustainability and resilience with a system to recirculate and reuse water from the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden and the new Water Garden pond, as well as absorb runoff from a significant portion of BBG’s 52-acre watershed. In the next phase of the project, the existing narrow stream system that runs from the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden south and out of… Read More »A New Focus on Sustainability and Resilience at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Embassy of Japan made a new JET Experience video. Current and former JETs share their experiences on the JET Program. Revolutionary. Adventure. Unforgettable. Transformative. Sugoi. Epic. Excitement. Life-changing. Kizuna (絆). Ichigo-ichie (一期一会). These are how they sum up their JET experience in one word. Please take a look using the following Youtube link! Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRjTHcz0JQw

Tottori prefecture calls for submissions to the Comic Art Contest. Please see the following link for the details. http://www.pref.tottori.lg.jp/238597.htm (It’s Japanese website. But you can go to the English site through a link on the page.)

Takayama city, Gifu prefecture calls for submissions to the Contemporary Woodblock-Prints Triennale. Please see the following link for the details. http://www.city.takayama.lg.jp/kurashi/1000021/1000118/1006776/1006777.html

Several of our staff members were able to attend the first ever Parks Without Borders summit, held at the New School on May 24th, hosted by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Attendees included people from numerous civic and parks advocacy groups along with design firms and other private and nonprofit sector entities involved in a broad range of issues. The City’s new Parks Without Borders program has received $50 million in City funding and seeks to more effectively and comprehensively integrate greenspace into the lives of New Yorkers. The all-day summit included keynote speeches on the evolution of public space in New York and the role… Read More »Parks Without Borders Summit