 Thank you President Gruz for that very kind introduction. I want to thank the faculty at OIST, the administration, staff, the honored guests, distinguished guests that we have today, friends from Okinawa, parents who are watching and here, and my fellow BOG and BOC Board of Governors and Councilor Members. I would like to thank my wife who is here with me. She has been my constant companion and support for nearly 30 years. And most of all, I would like to offer a congratulations to the Class of 2022. Those of you here and for those watching over the live stream online. I am delighted to be here today. Thank you for having me. Mostly because this spot where we stand has so many connections for me and such deep memories. I can recall many a weekend where I was snorkeling and swimming, very close to here, mostly around the beaches of Manza. And so this place is very, very dear to me. And what I wanted to do today was to spend a little bit of time telling you about this journey from here to Silicon Valley and back again. And some of the lessons I learned along the way. My life can be described as one of a global citizen. It was criss-crossing the Pacific Ocean any number of times. My parents were studying in the United States. And there they decided, and it was their desire that their children would one day be offered the same opportunity and go to the United States and study there. That's why I was born in the United States. So that 18 years hence when it came time to apply for college, I would have the benefit of being a U.S. citizen. Eventually when I was two or three, we made our way back to Okinawa. This is a picture of me at Miyazato Elementary School, actually very close to here, right over the hill in Nago. And it was a regular Japanese elementary school. But my parents started to realize that English was not taking root. And so they sold off everything. And we went back to the United States, to Indiana and to Oregon. Eventually we made our way back here to Okinawa. And this is where I finished out my high school career at Okinawa Christian School and Kubasaki High School on the military base. And yes, when it did come time to apply for universities, applied to schools in the U.S. and was accepted by Stanford University. And that's how I ended up finding myself after graduating at a company with a funny rainbow logo called Apple Computer. And now I found myself right in the middle of Silicon Valley where the personal computer revolution was taking place in Palo Alto. All that going back and forth certainly was not easy. It is not easy to find yourself when you're eight years old and in third grade, but sitting in a kindergarten class because you cannot speak the language. But I learned a very, very important lesson early on in life, which is irreplaceable, that the world is a very, very large place, bigger than I could have imagined. And that the stage is large and I have a place upon it. I cannot hold a candle to my parents and their long-term thinking, and I'm grateful to them. My father was going to be here today, actually, and unfortunately could not make it. But I did want to take a little bit of time to do something that one often doesn't get to do in public, which is to thank him for raising me the way that he did. And whenever you watch this stream, I hope you realize that you have given me a very precious gift of being a global citizen and I thank you. Speaking of my father, his great joy in life right now is to look forward to watching Shohai Ohtani Kapi in the major leagues. The first lesson I learned is you have to play in the major leagues. I was a major leaguer. Silicon Valley is the major leagues of technology. And Silicon Valley is the angel stadium of tech. It was where I met my longtime colleague and my friend, Steve Jobs, who hired me into Apple Computer. It was a long and incredible journey of almost 30 years. What a privilege and what an honor it was to be able to work alongside him, to work with him, to work with my colleagues on the products that are iconic in our generation. The Macintosh computer, the iPod, iTunes, and iPhone. All those products with an I in it have a little bit of me in it. And together, it has fundamentally changed the way we play, the way we are educated, the way we are informed, the way we work. It has had a huge impact on our lives. And little did I imagine at the start of this journey, that one day we will be in the business of music with iPod and iTunes, and change the music industry forever. And I could not have imagined at the start of that journey, that one day we will be in the mobile phone business and transform an entire category of consumer products. And yet Silicon Valley is not a place. It is not a geography. It is not a location per se. It is about the people. It is about your team. It is about how you compete. Silicon Valley had the best talent from around the world. And we were competing against the best that there was. Steve and my colleagues made me a better player. And I made them better. So whatever it is that you do, seek out your major league, the major leagues of science, the major league of research, the major league of business, the major league of performing arts, and welcome the challenge to play upon that bigger stage rather than the local leagues, even if it makes you feel like you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, or you feel like you have imposter syndrome, because you will never know how good you are till you test yourself against the best that there is. So believe that you have it in you. Go further than you think possible. And when you do get to the major leagues, what will you need to succeed? What you will need is radical collaboration. I learned this lesson because every single creative, successful, fun, impactful project that I have been a part of has been a product of radical collaboration. What you see behind me is the user interface of MacPaint. It was an application that was bundled with every single Macintosh that we shipped. The tools, the interface, the icons that you see here were created by an immensely talented designer named Susan Kerr. She also did the Macintosh desktop. But one must remember at the time that it was unheard of to have a graphic designer on your development team. It made no sense. Why would you want an artist, not an engineer, not a programmer, not somebody who codes on the development team? But one must also remember what was trying to be created. And that was a breakthrough in human computer interface design. Away from what was predominantly at the time the green blinking cursor of a CRT screen to the graphical user interface that you see here. All the icons and tools, the interface that you see were hand drawn by Susan Kerr. And the engineers had to go figure out how to make this happen. And vice versa, Susan had to grasp what was going on underneath the hood and understand what could be done in code and what could not be done in code. And translate that in a way that we, mere humans, can understand. And at OIST, you know this inherently. OIST is about creativeness through interdisciplinary research and science. But I urge and I challenge you to go beyond interdisciplinary into the land of radical collaboration. And when you do get to the land of radical collaboration, what will it take to innovate, to have the biggest impact that you can have? I have learned that innovation happens at the very edge of unreasonableness. You have to get way out there on the very edge where people start telling you, you know that is unreasonable. That is just not possible. I don't believe this. You must climb and get to the very edge of a cliff so that you can see beyond the normal terrain that you see every day in life. You have to get to the edge of the cliff and look beyond it in order to see a new land to explore, the land of opportunity, and the land of innovation. You know, when people tell me yes, that is when I get really, really nervous. Yes, James, that's a great idea. Yes, you should do that product. Yes, yes, yes. That is when I start losing sleep and I start asking myself, what is it that I'm missing? It cannot be that easy. When I hear a chorus of no's, no, the music labels will never agree to ever have music downloaded off the internet. No, there will never be a time when we can buy one song and not the entire album at the same time. No, there will never be a time when we can stream any song on demand live in the world. No, no, no, no. That is when I get really, really excited. I cannot wait to get up in the morning and tackle this challenge, the opportunity that is in the no. And there will be many times in your life when you hear a chorus of no's. No, your research is not gonna go anywhere. No, you are headed down the wrong path. And that is a time to be unreasonable. Listen to your intuition. Listen to your inner voice. Listen to your heart and follow that voice to the edge, to the edge of unreasonableness and look beyond it and climb down into the land that is innovation. So these are some of the lessons that I learned on my journey from here to Silicon Valley and back again. One must play in the major leagues, find your team there. One must strive for radical collaboration in how you work and you must push yourself and drive yourself to the very edge of unreasonableness to have the biggest impact that you can have. But today, I wanted to also leave you with one lesson, one message in addition to all the lessons. And for that, we need to go back to the beginning of the story and let's think about what my parents did. My mother, who sadly has passed away during COVID, she survived the battle of Okinawa. She survived the battle of Okinawa by hiding in the mountains and in the caves right where we are today. She survived the battle of Okinawa by surrendering and turning herself over to the US Marines and into a POW camp. My father survived because his family had fled to Taiwan during the war. But what did my parents decide to do after the battle of Okinawa, after World War II had concluded? They decided that they would go abroad and study like many of you have done, to jump into the heart of the enemy who had just killed everybody that they cared and loved. Their heart should have been full of rage and hate, and yet they decided to take the conscious step to create a life that is new, rather than dwell on the destruction of the old life. They decided that it is better to create than to destroy. It is better to love than to hate. And it may be something very trite for me to tell you that my message is to choose to create and not destroy. Choose love rather than hate. But consider where we are today and think about this. How many lives were lost during the battle of Okinawa where we stand today? How many lives are being lost? How many people are being killed in the constant conflicts that are raging across the world right now? And I would offer for consideration that perhaps it is the most profound and it is the most important thing to open your heart, to open your mind, to new people, to new cultures, to new ideas. Without an open heart and without an open mind, the creation of new knowledge cannot occur. And the creation of new knowledge is the most important investment that you can make in yourselves. That Okinawa can make for its people. That Japan can make for humankind. This is the OIST way. You have lived and experienced this. And I hope that you will always remember that you and OIST were here and that OIST is part of you. And that as you go forward, you will one day connect the dots back to Okinawa and to OIST. So remember, always create, never destroy. And in closing, I want to leave you with the words that Steve Jobs often said to us that we talked about a lot at Apple. It was attributed to Alan Kay, the scientist and technologist. And that is the best way to predict the future is to invent it. So let us go forth from here today. Go out into the world, think different. Be the square peg in the round hole that changes the world. Imagine the future you want to see and go invent it. Thank you.