Background
The EDEN (Emerging and Developing Economies Network) Foundation is a Japan-based association (in Japanese an Ippan Shadan Hojin) that aims to create a platform for debate and exchange on alternative solutions to aspirations of emerging and developing economies.
EDEN, initially a loose consortium of like-minded friends and long-time Japan residents Monte Cassim, Nassrine Azimi, Kaitu’u Funaki and Faezeh Mahichi, was imagined during a 2019 meeting at the Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University (the group was later joined by Cody Marschalk and Saeeda Razick). Members brought both experience working internationally and in Japan, making their perspectives global in outlook while anchored firmly in the know-how, systems and “mottainai” culture of Japan.
Throughout 2023, EDEN’s members undertook a series of reflections and consultations with trusted advisors. It had become clear that in order to create impact, EDEN’s mission needed to be promoted by (1) significantly expanding the number of its core members, and (2) restructuring it into a legal entity, as a public service foundation based in Japan.
Objectives
Building on the experiences and lessons learned throughout the 5-year pilot phase, the EDEN Foundation will continue to seek ways to identify and present ideas that address developmental and sustainability challenges. Through a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural prism initiatives that tackle in particular problems of poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and cultural alienation will be addressed and supported through the EDEN Seminars, or the EDEN Incubators:
Creating a platform, through seminars, roundtables, workshops and other public fora, for reflection/ debate on new ideas and initiatives through scientific, technological, cultural and social innovation, sustainability and reciprocity (The EDEN Seminars);
Creating a network to advise, guide and support young researchers and entrepreneurs in Eden’s thematic areas of focus, and most notably from developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region (The EDEN Incubators)
Supporting and nurturing any other initiatives emerging from the preceding, by EDEN members or group of Members.
Thematics/areas of focus
EDEN Foundation’s focus remains on ecology, economy and sustainability (SDGs in general); economic development with/vs. preservation of culture/tradition & cultural institutions; impacts of science, technology and social innovation on economic development. Its primary region of focus will be on emerging and developing economies of Asia/Pacific and the Silk Road communities
General beneficiaries
The EDEN Foundation will continue the principles of the original EDEN, namely prioritizing beneficiaries from among the social entrepreneurs, young innovators, researchers and scholars; public service NPO leaders, in particular, from developing and emerging economies.
Past Events
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The EDEN Foundation Team
Nassrine Azimi
Co - Chair
Monte Cassim
Co - Chair
Nassrine Azimi is coordinator of the Green Legacy Hiroshima (GLH) Initiative (http://glh.unitar.org), a global campaign she co-founded in 2011 to disseminate and plant worldwide seeds and saplings of the hibakujumoku, trees that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
At the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) where she spent her entire career, she led many new initiatives, programs and offices around the world. Dr. Azimi is adjunct professor at Doshisha Women’s College, visiting professor at Hiroshima Shudo University and Research Fellow at the San Diego Botanic Garden, part of efforts to bring botanic gardens to post-conflict and least developed countries. She has a BA in political science from the University of Lausanne, an MA in international relations from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies, a second MA in urban studies from the School of Architecture, University of Geneva, and a doctorate in cultural studies from the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University. She has been a visiting scholar at New York’s Columbia University and at the University of California in Los Angeles/UCLA, and a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB-COOP) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). She has written and published extensively, notably on UN peacekeeping and peace-building (co-edited with Chang Li Lin), on post-conflict reconstruction, environmental and cultural governance, and Asia. Her 2015 book (co-authored with Michel Wasserman) was about Beate Sirota Gordon and her father Leo, both prominent artistic and cultural figures in Japan and the United States. In 2019 she published ‘The United States and Cultural Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)’ and more recently she co-edited (with Humaira Khan-Kamal) ‘The UNITAR Hiroshima Fellowship for Afghanistan — An Anthology’ released in April 2023. In 2019 she was one of EDEN’s original co-founders and its chair since inception.
Address Hiroshima, JAPAN
Monte Cassim was appointed President of Akita International University in 2021. Prior to this he was President and Trustee of Shizenkan University, a Postgraduate Professional University in Leadership and Innovation where he also taught Science and Technology Innovation. He is also Professor Emeritus and Emeritus Executive Trustee of Ritsumeikan Trust, where he was Vice-Chancellor (2004-2012), and President of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (2004-09). He is on the Governing/Advisory Boards of several leading Japanese universities and think-tanks, including the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, the National Institute of Advanced Graduate Studies, Sokendai, Kyushu University, as well as the Vietnam-Japan University.
Professor Cassim was a researcher at the Japan Center for Area Development (JCADR) in 1974, and from 1980 entered Mitsui Construction Corporation’s Design Division. From 1985 he worked for the United Nations Center for Regional Development (UNCRD), where he was Coordinator of the Industrial Development Unit and the Urban Development and Housing Unit, as well as the Strategic Assistance Program for Latin America and Indonesia. He was seconded from UNCRD to the Social Infrastructure Division of the Asian Development Bank from 1986-1987 to work on a joint program on urban development for impoverished communities.
His professional expertise and interests are wide-ranging, covering Architecture, Urban Engineering, Industrial Policy, Conservation Biology and Health, Environment and Life Science, with his research focus on developing “earth- and human-friendly” technologies. He has published and lectured extensively and remains a “parish priest” proselytizing for Sustainability Science and “Inclusive Innovation”, a concept he advocated at the 2016 G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting. He has strived to promote science and technology partnerships between Japan and emerging economies, epitomized by the Sri Lanka Innovation Platform (J-SLIP), which has incubated 20 propulsive projects since 2016, covering many of the 17 UN SDGs. In 2019 he was one of EDEN’s original co-founders.
Address Akita, JAPAN