On September 11, APDA Executive Members’ Roundtable Meeting took place, having Dr. Kurokawa Kiyoshi, Chair of Health and Global Policy Research Institute (HGPI) and Professor Emeritus at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, as a guest speaker.

Dr. Kurokawa gave a wide-ranging lecture titled "Future Prospects for Japan" on such topics as the future of youth and social participation of the elderly. Based on his experiences as a professor at universities in Japan and the United States, he emphasized that it is important for Japan to empower young people so that they can bring down the once-successful Japanese “vertical society” (which means a hierarchical society with limited mobility to change employment or other relationships) and expand “horizontal” connections to create world wide networks that are beyond institutional boundaries or country borders. In the discussion that followed, the participants expressed their opinions that there was a considerable gap between the conventional population issues and the current situation and that it is necessary to revisit what the population issues take. The meeting offered a valuable opportunity to discuss the future of APDA’s activities.