On July 31, we held the Sumitomo Electric Group Global Award Ceremony, the most important and largest of the various ceremonies organized by the Sumitomo Electric Group.

The event took place in the Main Hall of the Osaka International Convention Center (Grand Cube Osaka), with the impressive participation of over 600 people, including Sumitomo Electric management and Sumitomo Electric Group employees from around the world. I’d love to write that “the venue was packed to capacity,” but the Main Hall, being a huge convention facility accommodating over 2000 people, I should settle on saying that I am grateful to the participants for their conveniently concentrating on the first floor.

The Ceremony started with a speech by Mr. Hiroyuki Takenaka, Sumitomo Electric Managing Director and President of the Jury of the Awards, followed by the presentation of 87 awards, headed by four major awards: the Glorious Award, Excellent Award, Ingenious Dynamics Award and Glorious Excellent Award.

As I handed award certificates, plates and gifts to all the awardees, I said some words to them, in their languages whenever I could: “thank you,” “congratulations,” “arigato,” “omedeto” (Japanese), “xiexie,” “ganxie” (Chinese) … I saw many awardees’ faces light up immediately on hearing words in their mother tongue. Globalization is inevitable, and I think that such small gestures can make globalized encounters more pleasant; I hope to continue and extend this further.

After the award presentations and a photo session, three activity case reports were presented. Finally, I spoke on “VISION 2012,” the Sumitomo Electric Group’s new mid-term business plan, and the Ceremony was brought to a close.

As befit the venue, simultaneous interpretation was provided. The interpreters, who must be well-prepared, provided very smooth and fluent interpretations. Mr. F, the MC, also did an excellent job; we were all quite pleased with the progression of the event.