The first Find-Your-Role-Model Session in AY 2022 (the 65th in total) featured Dr. Takaaki Nakada, President of Smart119 inc. and Professor of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, as a guest.

After graduating from Chiba University School of Medicine in 1999, Dr. Nakada completed his doctoral studies at the same university and has continued his research on genetics in the field of emergency medicine since then. He also conducted research at British Columbia University from 2008. After returning to Japan, his project "Development of a smart patient information collection, processing, and sharing system to realize early and correct emergency medical care" was adopted by the AMED Research and Development Project in 2016. Then, in 2018, he founded Smart 119 inc., a medical technology venture through Chiba University with the mission of "saving more patients by smartly solving issues in the medical field through the fusion of cutting-edge technology and flexible and creative ideas”. In 2019, he was appointed a professorship in the Department of Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine, and as both a manager and a university professor he is active in various fields.

In the session, he talked about how he started the company while working as a researcher/ instructor in the field of emergency and intensive care medicine, the difficulties and challenges in running a venture company, their solutions, and advice for students and young researchers.

Dr. Nakada particularly emphasized the importance of returning research results to society. Considering that the basic mission of medical universities is clinical care, research, and education, he said that it was necessary to proceed with a different scheme of entrepreneurship/ enterprise in order to implement the results in society. He also told us that the work in corporate management of responding to new issues one by one that emerge every day has something in common with research, which involves carefully formulating and testing hypotheses.

He also mentioned the diversity of Smart119 inc.'s services and team members, saying that the mission and issues they are trying to solve are easy to understand and resonate with many professionals and specialists, and that they have been able to obtain cooperation in a variety of ways. In particular, Mr. Yasuo Yamao, director and CTO (Dr. Nakada's classmate from junior high and high school), was a key figure in the development and management of the company. He said that he, as a doctor who recognizes the challenges of clinical practice firsthand, has been able to work together with people from many other professions to solve complex problems in a "smart" way. By taking on the challenges with many other professionals, he was able to move forward toward finding "smart" solutions to complex problems.

In closing, as a message to those of us who will be the next generation of healthcare providers, Dr. Nakada mentioned his own mindset that "people around you are always wonderful," and advised us to cherish our relationships and each encounter we have with others. We found this session very meaningful and stimulating, as Dr. Nakada has been working extensively as an entrepreneur for social implementation and problem solving, in addition to his clinical, research, and educational activities.