Prof Akiko Yamanaka serves as President of International Tsunami Disaster Prevention Society, Special Advisor to the President of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Senior Visiting Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). She served as Former Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and Special Ambassador for Peacebuilding of Japanese Government as well as Special Ambassador for Awareness of the World Tsunami in addition to Member of the Diet of Japan. She has been active in both academia and the political arena. She pursued her academic career as Bi-Fellow at Churchill College of University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor at the United Nation University, Graduate School of Hokkaido University and Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford in UK, Harvard University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Brookings Institute in Washington DC in USA. She served other posts in the Diet included DS Director General of the Women’s Bureau of the LDP and she launched “The Human Resources Development Program in Asia for Peacebuilding” as Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs. She also launched “The World Assembly for Women (WAW!)” and UK-Japan Global Seminar. Her expertise includes International Peacebuilding, International Negotiation and Strategic Studies, Natural and Human Induced Disaster Prevention, Preventive Diplomacy on which she has written and gives lectures extensively. She has published books, “Think, or Sink: Preventive State Theory” among others. She was awarded OISCA Award (for Contributions to Asia) and the International Soroptimist Japan’s Sen Kayoko Prize (for Contributions to International Understanding)”.