Objective of the Association

As a president of the IAEE, I would like to make a brief address to the members of the Association.

When I look back at the names of the past IAEE presidents, I cannot but feel awed by them, although I have a small advantage of having served as IAEE Secretary General for more than 10 years.  I know bad as well as good things about the Association.  For example, I have experienced myself how poor the IAEE is and how difficult it is more often than not to manage the General Assembly of National Delegates.

Since we left Vancouver in the summer of 2004, dreadful earthquake disasters repeated themselves in various places of the world.  Earthquakes in Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, for example, took several tens of thousand human lives and their properties.  The 2004 Sumatra tsunami disaster, in particular, is reported to have taken about 230,000 lives in several countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.  Many people have been deprived of their livelihood by these earthquakes.

International communities showed their strong will help the affected people.  But, a tsunami disaster repeated itself again in Indonesia about several months ago.  This shows that good wills alone cannot save people, and that there seems to be pitfalls in international cooperation.  I believe that an organization like the IAEE will be able to contribute to solve these kinds of problems.

There is a well known saying, “Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today.”  I may be a lazy president who very often puts off what I can do today for tomorrow.  Very fortunately, however, I have a wonderful group of Directors, Vice President Polat Gulcan, and Secretary General Manabu Yoshimura to assist me. 

With your cooperation, I would like to do my best to follow what past presidents have done for the IAEE to mitigate earthquake disasters in the world. 

Thank you.