Episode 3: Sustainability in agriculture and water
In this episode, Tomo Kumahira (2022 cohort), who is pursuing a joint MBA and MS degree in environment and resources (EIPR), talks about thinking creatively about agriculture and water use in response to climate change, working at a startup in coastal Kenya, inspiring communities through blogging, and dishwashing at a Michelin star restaurant. He also discusses learning in multicultural environments, the Knight-Hennessy application, curiosity at Denning House, and so much more.
Resources
- Tomo Kumahira's blog
- Project Mizu
- Story: How Imagine A World began
Guest
Tomo Kumahira (2022 cohort) from Tokyo, Japan, is pursuing an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a master's degree in environment and resources in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in international relations, receiving the Mark and Betty Garrison Prize. Tomo aspires to tackle climate change by scaling up capital-intensive, long-term technology solutions in the living essentials space such as agriculture, forestry, and water.
He started his career as a private equity investment professional at Mitsubishi Corporation and served as Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy at Komaza, a Kenya-based startup partnering with over 22,000 smallholder farmers to promote sustainable forestry in Africa. At Komaza, Tomo developed the world’s first securitization instrument for smallholder forestry, raised over $50M of blended finance, and led carbon program development, recognized by Climate Policy Initiative Innovative Climate Financing Award and Environmental Finance Magazine Impact Project/Investment of the Year. Tomo is Acumen Fellow and Robert Bosch Foundation GGF Fellow.
Hosts
Imagine A World is hosted by Willie Thompson, left, and Taylor Goss, right.
Taylor Goss (2021 cohort), from Lacassine, Louisiana, is pursuing an MA in music, science, and technology and an MPP in public policy at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He graduated with college honors from Louisiana State University with bachelor's degrees in music and entrepreneurship. Taylor aspires to connect musicians and policymakers, using the arts to communicate societal needs and provoke policy change.
Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), from Griffin, Georgia, is pursuing a master's degree in business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in Chinese Studies. He intends to create and contribute to organizations using the arts as a conduit for community building and intercultural education.
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss. The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson, along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Special thanks to Sanaa Alam, Rachel Desch, Sydney Hunt, Chan Leem, Kara Schechtman, Takondwa Priscilla Semphere, and Rahul Thapa.
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Tomo Kumahira (00:14):
For now, I'm 100 percent on to that. Answering the question of how can we respond to all the weather changes and pattern changes that can be so devastating in agriculture and sustainable water use. Connecting the dots is one of the most exciting intellectual exercise and making movements out of it is also a very fruitful pursuit. So I'm hopeful that I'll find something more to do in the field as I dig, but we'll see. My name is Tomo Kumahira. I'm MBA E-IPER student and Knight-Hennessy Scholar 2022 cohort. I imagine a world where people creatively solve for long-term sustainability in agriculture and water, despite all the changes happening as a result of climate change.
Taylor Goss (01:07):
Welcome to the Imagine a World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students spanning all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life.
Willie Thompson (01:33):
Today you'll be hearing from Tomo Kumahira, a joint MBA MS student. During our conversation, you'll hear Tomo's experience learning in multicultural environments, working at a startup in coastal Kenya, building a team for its new venture focused on water and agriculture, and so much more.
Taylor Goss (01:57):
Tomo, thank you so much for being here today. It's a deep honor for us to have you on the podcast. I'm really glad that you chose to use your time to hang out with me a little bit and talk about your life and share a little bit of how cool you are with the world. I know that you call yourself a nerd, but I think you're cool, personally.
Tomo Kumahira (02:13):
I thought that meant the same thing, but yeah.
Taylor Goss (02:15):
Yeah, okay. Yeah, it can mean the same thing. So you have a really interesting, I imagine a world statement about creatively solving for agriculture and water use in response to climate change. But I want to go back a little bit more. I want to talk a little bit about your origin story. Where did you come from? Where did you go? So where are you from and what was your journey to the space you're in now?
Tomo Kumahira (02:37):
It's actually a pretty long journey and a lot of going this way and going that way. I was born in Tokyo and spent about 20 years in Japan before going anywhere else in the world, and as a kid, I was raised as a typical Japanese kid. I went into a very traditional Japanese education system, and when I got into university in Japan, I went to Keio University. I just realized I can explore further outside the country. Especially I was studying international politics, it felt more natural for me to go outside. And so I started to look into opportunities and I realized I can transport during universities in United States. So that's how I got myself into Brown. And that itself was a bit of a journey, but that led me to really explore international relations, but also businesses, social entrepreneurship, a lot of things that I was exposed to really form my passion into how can we deliver a positive impact at significant scale.
(03:38):
And I think business is a very important forces to do that and that's why I decided to join Mitsubishi Corporation, which is a Japanese trading and investment company. And I was in the private equity investment team that had a very funky track record. My team's mandate was to invest any assets outside things that other departments were doing. So any funky thing come in. So there were one time like, oh, there's a Pakistani impact fund coming to pitch us. And then, okay, this is very different because right before I was talking to real estate investor in London and all of these things were really forming our and my perspective around how can we make business and finance as forces to really change the industry. After two years, I left to Kenya. Originally I started as a kind of short-term six month fellow in a startup company in rural Kenya. It's in the coast town called Kilifi. It ended up a five-year career as a CFO later in the time and then Stanford.
Taylor Goss (04:41):
There's a lot to unpack there. I'm curious, at the very top of your story, you said you had a very traditional Japanese upbringing and entrance into get education. What does that mean to you? I found a podcast that you were on by the way, where you were described as not your typical Japanese millennial, and I'm wondering if you agree with that.
Tomo Kumahira (05:01):
Yes, I had a lot of fun with that podcast and also my friend had more fun with the title because basically their responses was, yeah, I told you so 20 years ago. So the traditional Japanese education I went through in my definition was that you go to school, your teacher is senior to you, and therefore it is a very traditional Asian education system. Yeah, seniority matters. They will teach you how to do it. And I'm just absorbing as a humble learner, which I think is important in many elements. But at the same time, I was shocked when I went to Brown, I think it was like a opening ceremony or something, a professor said, well, we are all here as equal scholars or equal researchers. I'm looking forward to learning from you all and that was a very shocking statement. So that's probably a good way to show how traditional education in Japan that I went through was more like, oh, the teacher said this, so I will write this instead of I feel this way, I think this way. That should be equally respectable idea as someone who has 50 more years of experience.
Taylor Goss (06:07):
So it seems that you're sort of drawn to this collaborative mindset even with what you're doing now with finance and climate change adaptation. It's this inherently interdisciplinary set of functions. With you finding this collaborative environment at Brown, what did you learn from that? What resulted from you finding collaboration?
Tomo Kumahira (06:27):
When there are a lot of smart people and curious people and ideally humble people in the same room, you can actually achieve a lot more than what each of us are capable of. It's easier to say that, but it's really hard to accept the fact that you have no clue where this is heading to. And that was really a uncomfortable experience for me at the very beginning. But that's after several trials and errors and you'll start to see, oh, oh, this is how it works. So now it feels almost like the uncertainty and ambiguity is part of the journey. So I feel right when I feel that anxiety, because I've been through this once or twice and that experience was probably the most invaluable experience.
Taylor Goss (07:10):
Throughout my life. I've felt a lot that certain environments or certain people that were willing to collaborate or that were willing to simply encourage or verify or validate what I was thinking or feeling was sometimes the most important thing. Whenever you have people that maybe believe in you more than you believe in yourself occasionally. And actually on that, was there anyone at Brown or anywhere else that has particularly guided you or helped you find clarity and that uncertainty, especially as it relates to going forward to this intersection of finance and climate change?
Tomo Kumahira (07:45):
Well, there are so many great people there. The entire culture of brand.
Taylor Goss (07:49):
You can give your acknowledgement section and we'll post a paragraph upon paragraph.
Tomo Kumahira (07:53):
It's not going to be paragraphs, it's going to be like two, three pages or something. But any case, that's a very difficult question. No, the culture there is that if you believe in something and you can justify it, you should do it and the university supports it. So that was a really clear thing. So there are so many people who helped me along the way, but I'll probably name one person, Alan Harlam, who was the professor, my professor in the social entrepreneurship class. You can imagine there are a bunch of overexcited, 20 year old overachievers in the classroom excited about impact they can do to change the world. And the reality is there are so many things that students need to learn, students need to figure out, and he's been so patient with these overexcited kids try to do silly things. But on the other hand, he really encouraged students like myself to really try it out.
(08:42):
And he's helped me a lot, especially around important decision making. When I got my first job outside after Brown, he was basically telling me, yeah, Tomo, before you get the phone call from the recruiter that you are getting a job, you want to know whether your answer is yes or no because otherwise people will be just allured to whatever is shining in front of them. And when I was self questioning around, oh, is it bad that I go to finance after Brown, but he's someone who kind of believe in my decision if I'm actually solidly authentic in that sense. And then there are lots of moments like that. He's been my mentor for almost a decade now, and I probably thank him the most in that journey.
Taylor Goss (09:27):
I'm so glad that you have someone like that in your life. I think we all need those people at certain points. So was the kernel for this mix of water and agriculture and climate change, adaptation and finance, were those all things that you found at Brown? How did those sometimes fairly distinct areas start to come together and when did you first see, oh, this vision that I described in my Imagine A World statement, this can work.
Tomo Kumahira (09:50):
Another very tough question. I love the questions and that's why I'm here.
Taylor Goss (09:55):
Hey, got to keep you on your toes.
Tomo Kumahira (09:56):
Absolutely. So first and foremost, I think there was an early instinct around, oh, business and impact are not donors and recipients. My first experience in the social impact space was when I was teaching at Teach for Japan or Learning For All, which is Japanese name of a program. So after school tutoring program, I spent three months really working hard with the student and he did excellent and I felt great, and I looked at the stats in the government office realizing there are 1.2 million students like him. Then I realized, well, you know what? Me changing one person's trajectory is probably good thing for the society, but is not enough. How can I actually scale solutions that are impactful? And I thought for me, business and finance are not making money and so forth. It's part of it, but the gist of it seems to me is that the accumulated wisdom of people trying to minimize the risks and maximize the possibility of an idea.
(11:02):
So corporation was formed to hedge the risks of having very risky businesses and enterprises. So all of these things is just tools. For me, it's a means to realize big scale project such as impactful project. So I think that thought was in my head from early time, but I learned so much along the journey of trying to do that. So you have to position yourself in the right place. So I was one time financial person and then next time I find myself in coastal Kenya. So all of these journey really gave the details and colors to the big idea. Now I'm looking at water and agriculture purely because that's what I can resonate with the most, but also now I have the tools. How can we use the tools in the most useful way for everyone? My conviction in life is that my mission is going to be about supporting building, financing, capital intensive, high impact businesses, and I think agriculture and water are fitting into that category.
Taylor Goss (12:10):
I saw you just a few days ago and we had a conversation about our summers. You spent at least part of your summer gathering a team of sorts for a new enterprise that you're scouting out about water and agriculture. And to build a team around an issue at least I think you have to be fairly passionate about. You have to really know why something resonates with you. Why is it that water and agriculture resonates with you as a primary focus for climate change adaptation? And what do you tell people whenever you say, you should come work with me on this?
Tomo Kumahira (12:43):
Two major components, to answer your question. First, climate change itself is a very controversial topic and a lot of people have different opinions about this, but my bottom line in this water and agriculture space is that first we see a lot of changes in our weather patterns, and that's been consistent for as far as people can remember. It's like at least hundreds of years. People expect rain season to be in the same month as last year or dry season same, but that's changing right now and it's likely that it's going to change further and further. Then my question is, okay, all these debates about what's going to happen is fine, but how does it affect our livelihood the most? When I was living right next to farms in Kenya or when I see vineyards in California, people are complaining, Hey, the droughts are affecting us.
(13:37):
Heat waves are affecting us, or the winter was not cold enough or actually warmer or whatever. All of these things are affecting agriculture so much. When you look at the inputs of agriculture, water is the biggest input. Humans use about a thousand gallons of water per day in terms of footprint. But out of that, like 70% of the water use is agriculture alone. And can you imagine you actually carry many, many tons of water every day just to farm from outside. Now, we don't have to do that because the planet is doing that for us, right? The rain is a mechanism to distribute water, but if these things change, it's a very significant change and I believe that is a very important issue to be tackled. It is not only just a welfare or wellbeing question, it is such a crucial security challenge. That's why I think this is an important subject for many. And the second component is that I tweeted about it.
Taylor Goss (14:39):
You tweeted about it?
Tomo Kumahira (14:39):
Yeah, I tweeted about it and that was very simple tweet saying, I'm going to do research this summer. It was not a startup idea. It's more like a research idea. I was just curious, what are the solutions? Well, climate change, adaptation, agriculture, water, I'm going to do research on this subject. Are there any people interested in joining us? That got crazy on Twitter.
Taylor Goss (15:02):
You just threw a message in a bottle out into the internet?
Tomo Kumahira (15:06):
Yeah, and I was just still skeptical after getting 200 likes on my feed or something. So I was, okay, you know what? This must be just like people being kind to me. I got tested by having a form basically say, Hey, what's your name? Where do you work for? Why you're interested in it? How much can you commit to this?
Taylor Goss (15:21):
If you make people fill out a Google form that's stepping up to the next level.
Tomo Kumahira (15:25):
So I'm testing that just as learn at Stanford classroom, guess in the market. Then I still got 40 responses. They're like doctors management consultants, investors, water experts, agriculture person. All over the place. Or ramen shop owners!
Taylor Goss (15:42):
The ramen shop owners, okay.
Tomo Kumahira (15:43):
Yeah, that was amazing. But all in all, that widespread curiosity is what really ignited me, and that's how I think that the conviction in the structure of the issue, but also conviction in people's interest in it, that both of them really fueled my research.
Taylor Goss (15:58):
I'd like to know more about your experience in Kenya. What company were you working with there? What did you do? What did you walk out of that experience with? You said you were there for five years, right?
Tomo Kumahira (16:07):
Yeah.
Taylor Goss (16:07):
That's a long time.
Tomo Kumahira (16:08):
It is. The company I was working for is called Komaza. What they do is they partner with small scale farmers and plant trees with them. That sounds very NGO-y, but it's actually a very commercial entity because forestry is a sector where you need a lot of land and space to plant many, many trees. Then trees grow only slow. So you have to have planted many, many years and then have a balanced portfolio in different years of trees. But that is very difficult to do in Africa context, east Africa context because plantations that were existing before decolonization are gone. So now the farmers plant their own trees and trying to grow that. And we are basically building the infrastructure around the farmers, so giving them the right seeds, seedlings, teaching them how to manage the tree farming, and all of these process would enhance ability for the farmers to produce and sell wood. And we uptake the trees from the farmers and process and make it a timber. And it's almost like a Airbnb model in that sense. If you cannot aggregate many, many thousand acres of land, why don't we have one acre of plot with thousands of farmers and the company was planting about 40% of Kenya's annual commercial restoration. So it was quite significant skills and that was the company I was working for.
Taylor Goss (17:34):
It sounds like this experience in Kenya was really impactful on you moving forward, and I'm wondering are there any instances or events there that you're particularly proud of that you walked away with?
Tomo Kumahira (17:45):
The five year was a big journey from when I joined. It was post-series A, so that means they convinced investors enough that the idea is something that is worth testing, but the form of the business were not there. And what that meant was that we were focused on planting trees, millions of trees early on, and we had to build a processing facility. And the moment I probably never forget is when we launched our first sun timber manufacturing factory. It's just like millions of dollars of investment getting into one factory. But what that meant, I learned later, is that on the day of the ceremony, we have big names like ahead of the country's forestry governance coming in, governors coming in, all of these important people coming in and then tell the story at it. Well, this is not only just a new factory and new employment, it's actually about building the industry.
(18:38):
And the factory was and probably is East Africa's probably one of the most advanced sun timber factory, and you can easily imagine if you have poorly managed forestry, then you can produce only poorly manufactured products. If you want to change the dynamics, someone need to take the leap of faith and best advance on high quality facility to produce high quality products. And that was not only that, the team I helped finance did an amazing job building the factory. But also it meant so much for the company, but also it meant so much for the industry and I really loved the feeling of, oh, I did something maybe little, but be part of the industry building process and that was very exciting moment.
Taylor Goss (19:24):
That's amazing to be part of something that feels larger than yourself and that has impact beyond your own life and also I'm sure is a benefit to the industry, but also to the people whose faces you look at that are working at this mill and that are living in this region. Right? I imagine that has to be pretty inspiring.
Tomo Kumahira (19:42):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's still very difficult things to run business anywhere in the world. And these things, when you feel the excitement, you also have the anxiety of like, oh, how can we sustain this? And the tension is still there, but I think the people excited about what can happen next is probably the only first step we can take toward a better future. And in that sense it's just very high energy, high exciting, high excitement, high emotion.
Taylor Goss (20:10):
So you're coming off this high emotion, high intensity, high excitement experience, and you consider Stanford, you consider Knight-Hennessy. What attracted you to Knight,-Hennessy, and what were your thoughts leading up to applying and how have you been since arriving here?
Tomo Kumahira (20:24):
As I said, right, I love the job and the impact that I can create on the ground as a professional was just getting only more and more every time I check. The reason why I started to think about, okay, what can I go beyond? I could see myself being a CFO for that company or another company or climate finance professional. I could build a career around it. The challenge I started to see is that around 2020 narrative around investing in East Africa or Africa in general changed so much. The way it changed is that before 2020 we're talking about we're describing our business as impact like social entrepreneurship, social enterprises, working with smallholder farmers. These are the keywords that we use. Then all of a sudden climate and a wave came in, the amount of money flowing in is probably another zero or two, so we're talking about half million dollars or 250 K or few million dollars, and now it's like 50 million dollars.
(21:19):
A hundred million dollars is a very different world. And the more interact with investors, other entrepreneurs, we also frankly don't know what to come. What does it mean to invest in climate? What does it mean to do climate startups? And that really triggered me to think, well actually, if I were to just think afresh and make an ideal place, I should understand dynamics behind the systems and how it works. It's really interdisciplinary area. So ecology, biology should be part of it in addition to just financial modeling; that all of these things I saw there is a gap. And for me, I was starting to think how can I actually make the maximum impact out of me then I should probably consider upgrading my brain and spirit with more. And so that's why I applied to Stanford, which is best business goal and also climate program and social entrepreneurship and social innovation research. So all of them were there. So I only applied to Stanford and that got me in.
Taylor Goss (22:20):
What were your thoughts and feelings leading up to applying for Knight-Hennessy?
Tomo Kumahira (22:24):
Knight-Hennessy, first and foremost, I think for those who are applying, please don't be scared by the bios. The only thing I can think of right now when you ask that question was like the moment I was looking at, okay, let's take a look at those people who are accepted.
Taylor Goss (22:40):
I did the exact same thing, just doom scrolling through all the bios of these incredible inspiring people that I will never live up to.
Tomo Kumahira (22:46):
Yeah, incredible inspiring is good when you're just watching pop like Netflix or whatever, but this is your potential benchmark for the bios. Then it's not inspiration turn into fear and scare really quickly. So I remember that, but I was interested in having the place to be when I'm pursuing my own interest at Stanford because my time at Stanford would be a failure if I just learned the subject. My time should be dedicated to, and I really need to hold myself accountable to, just what I said. I have to study, but also try to practice and have to make things happen. That was the place for me to work. So I wanted to have the best environment possible, like-minded people in the same room, same house is the best thing I can do. So that's why I applied. But yeah, I was honestly not expecting to get in. But anyways, I was lucky.
Taylor Goss (23:38):
That seems to be a pretty universal feeling, I feel the same way. So now that you've arrived at Stanford, you wander, you dream, you work in these multiple communities. How has Knight-Hennessy contributed to your Stanford experience?
Tomo Kumahira (23:51):
Knight-Hennessy community is such an incredible place for those who have unlimited curiosity. That's the very best thing that happened to me at Stanford - to get to know all the other scholars and really having these conversation, because we always talk about we have to go beyond our comfort zone. We have to learn from others, we have to do interdisciplinary thing or cross-disciplinary thing. We can say that, but honestly, how often do you discuss a paper from another discipline with the expert, a PhD student in the field? And that's happening at Denning House where Knight-Hennessy Scholars is it all the time. That's how people just naturally exercise their own curiosity. And in that process I not only get so much inspiration from them, but conversations like talking to a physics PhD student about how to best perform our brain function, or how can we talking with sociologists to talk about what equality means and redistribution of wealth means, or talking with the climate policy person to really see how can we actually make a change that is meaningful instead of just greenwashing? All of these controversial subjects that we discuss with individuals who are really dedicating their life to it.
(25:04):
And that's really inspirational for me, but also when I have my own idea, this is my go-to place to talk about it. And people ask all the smart questions, different questions, and as I'm just writing a report on the water and agriculture research, there are a few of us reviewing that document and gave me a very good feedback. So in all these senses, it's a really big source of inspiration for me.
Taylor Goss (25:28):
I know from my perspective that a conversation that we had sticks in my mind is one of the coolest experiences in Knight-Hennessy just because you and I met each other after you arrived about a year after I did, and we said, oh, we should get a coffee. And we actually did. We went and sat and hung out on the balcony on the Denning deck. We ended up booking about 45 minutes of our time. That turned into about two and a half hours. I don't know. But we just talked about uncertainty and how we were feeling in life and what we were excited about as you a GSB, Doerr School student and me, a music technology and public policy student, and despite the field differences that we have, we're able to connect on just the general, the things in life that everybody experienced, the sadness, the excitement, the joy, the fear. We talked a lot about uncertainty and how we deal a bit with uncertainty in that conversation. And I'm wondering, how are you feeling about uncertainty at Stanford right now and in your life? Do you know what you want to do for the rest of your life, Tomo?
Tomo Kumahira (26:28):
Uncertainties are greatest in my life potentially because Stanford will throw at you all the possible opportunities you can ever imagine. This is true. My first year was really about struggling to accept that fact that not only you have so much potential, but also you have to give up so much potential too. You can do only so much. That's why I'm actually very excited about this water and agriculture research that I'm working on right now because that's an opportunity for me to connect the dots that are relevant for me, but also new to me and have context for me and really turn it into a momentum and movement. For now, I'm a hundred percent onto that, answering the question of how can we respond to all the weather changes and pattern changes that can be so devastating in agriculture and sustainable water use. Connecting the dots is one of the most exciting intellectual exercise and making movements out of it is also very fruitful pursuit. So I'm hopeful that I'll find something more to do in the field as I dig, but we'll see.
Taylor Goss (27:34):
I gave you a fairly insurmountable task because the question, what do you want to do with the rest of your life, I think becomes more and more clear to me as an impossible question to ask and also will have a different implied answer anytime you ask someone. So really I was just asking give me a snapshot of where you are and you did that beautifully. Thank you, Tomo. So I did a bit of background research, hence me finding the podcast and everything, A few things that I happened upon. You have a blog, you're into photography, you worked at a Michelin star restaurant. I want to dive into each of those. Tell me about your blog. What do you write about on your blog?
Tomo Kumahira (28:07):
I started a blog when I was probably 19 year old or something. So I remember it was like the night before I fly out to Brown. So it was my very first studying abroad properly and living outside my family for a year or year's time. So I was very anxious and I started realize, well, I should probably do something. And I was like, well, maybe blog would be a good idea. So I started that, the journey, and since then I've just journaled what I was feeling or thinking. It's almost like a therapy. You're writing blog for readers, but also more or less for yourself. So that really helped me. And a year later when the next class of Brown students coming in, there are a few Japanese students talking to me, and he was also a blogger. He was like, well, Tomo, I'm reading your blog.
(28:57):
And it was quite interesting. Shall we do something together? And we ended up hosting a student-led blog project. That was viral - was a million viewers per year. Big projects and other schools really started to apply the same model. So that was a really big, big change that really coming out of my just random articles about myself and how I felt and how I thought. And that just continued in my life. So when I got into Stanford, I got a phone call from a current student, senior students, and oh, congratulations. Tomo, by the way, I know you because I transferred to another school in the US because I read the blog. these occasions just, I had another person coming up in my office back when I was working in Tokyo saying, well, you must be Tomo, right? And I was like, well, who is this?
(29:48):
And she was like, well, I was there for your blog events or information sessions about studying abroad and I graduated from high school. I went to university in the States and I'm here. I'm the company. All of these crazy things happened throughout the blog. And frankly, I don't think I write a lot about very dense, meaningful stuff. It's much more about what I'm thinking in terms of how I view their life, how I view the career journey or how I view the decision process. Maybe uncertainties actually what I'm probably expressing as a result. So I try to frame impact social impact sector or climate sector or career in it. And that's probably what a lot of people to secretly follow me.
Taylor Goss (30:30):
I'm sure that a lot of what you write being kind of journalistic is very specific to you and specific to your experience, but you see that a lot even in art, like a song that is very specifically about one person or someone or one person's emotion, but has the kernel of humanity in it or the kernel of some universal experience that allows other people to get something from it or be inspired by it. So very cool that through you expressing yourself and your feelings, you've inspired other people to take risks or pursue their passions. That's beautiful. And so you have the written word, but you also have the visual medium. Do you include your own photography in your blog or is that a separate endeavor?
Tomo Kumahira (31:09):
Photography is much more of a fun project that I purely manage, so I have to sort out my Dropbox really. But any case, photography is something that I just started, I don't know when. It turned out I like that and it's fun and I was traveling a lot in terms of studying abroad in the US or going back to Japan and traveling here or there. Photography is probably the most portable hobby that you can have. So in that sense I like it. I also like the nerdy geeky mechanic part of it too. But ultimately what I love the most is that trying to take a good photo of someone actually makes you observe the person much better. You are looking at the smile, not a smile like, oh wait, what did that person do? What does that entail? That searching really gives me a good, how should I say, kicks into trying to understand the world better, trying to understand the person better and hopefully make good friends in the process.
Taylor Goss (32:04):
We're going to talk a little bit more about your Knight-Hennessy improbable facts from your application later, but I got to flag something that I found in your probable facts. It seems that your photography is not only a hobby, but also a service.
Tomo Kumahira (32:19):
I know what you're talking about.
Taylor Goss (32:20):
So I understand that some of your photography is specific for hyping people up for dating apps. Is that correct?
Tomo Kumahira (32:27):
It is not a service.
Taylor Goss (32:28):
Do I have that right?
Tomo Kumahira (32:29):
It's consequences. It's a consequence.
Taylor Goss (32:30):
A consequence.
Tomo Kumahira (32:31):
Consequences. The way it often happened in the past, I don't do that anymore, so it's fine. It was not even a business or service or anything like that. It's more like sometimes startups or somewhere you take a good photo of someone, the person want to use it for social media. And then I was like, yeah, sure. A professional photo, okay, team photo at my previous startup company. And then people are like, oh gosh, the photography again, headshot again. It's very boring. And then a few photos and show them. I was like, they're like, wow, this is actually good. Can you take more for my other platforms? I would not name. And that's normally how it goes.
Taylor Goss (33:07):
Okay, so the words out there, Tomo Kumahira, the world's wing man. Michelin star restaurant, you worked at a Michelin star restaurant. What was that experience like? What were you doing?
Tomo Kumahira (33:20):
That was when I was an undergrad. I was taking a gap semester. I was just doing too much things and too many things and trying to figure out what I'm going to do after university. And during the time I wanted to sustain my own financial life, so I have to looking for a job. And I found this job at a dishwasher, at a Michelin star restaurant, like a French restaurant.
Taylor Goss (33:42):
So you weren't the head chef?
Tomo Kumahira (33:44):
Oh gosh, no. But that's actually a very, very inspiring experience for me in many ways. So to set a context, the kitchen, the dishwashing is positioned in the very center of bakery and patisserie and the main French restaurant. So from 7:00 AM to midnight, dishes and things are just flowing in constantly. So it's almost a battlefield and it's because it's French restaurant, you have 70 dishes, kinds of dishes. For lunch, dishes should be cold, for dinner, dishes should be warm and all these things you have to remember and all that hustle of handling that alone was a very good zen moment for me. You actually do things and just forget about everything else. That's one piece of it. Another piece of it was I was working with probably someone like a 60-year-old or potentially 70-year-old in the same dishwashing and they told me all the different stories about their lives and so forth. So again, the dishwashing, it's really hard, but that conversation is again something that you don't really have. And finally the head chef part, the competitiveness and passion and energy, the grind that is going into creating great meals are just fascinating. But really at the scarily level, inspiring and it's sometimes very aggressive and that really, I think set myself into the right mode of really pursuing the perfection and pursuing things that you actually believe is the best. I think I learned so much from just being in the same room with these great chefs.
Taylor Goss (35:18):
I have seen the film Ratatouille, which is my only real insight into what that role was like, but it sounds like it was a really, really great experience for you. I just hope that there were fewer rats around than in the film.
Tomo Kumahira (35:30):
No rats. No rats, no.
Taylor Goss (35:32):
Okay, great. So Tomo, you've spent a great deal of time with me and I really appreciate you sharing your story and you sharing your vision of a world where people creatively solve for long-term sustainability of agriculture and water use. I'd like to know in a world that's 10, 20, 50 years down the line, what do you want that world to look like in terms of your vision and what needs to change to get there?
Tomo Kumahira (35:55):
Very big question, big answer too. If I were to name only one driver for the change, it's got to be conversation. What I mean by that is that water and agriculture, both of them are very specific industry with very specific expertise. As I learn more and more by talking to people, I only feel the greater sense that I never know enough. And that's probably arguably true for those water experts working in one category of agriculture or agriculture people working on water issues. For these things to still could get connected and solve big problem like water and agriculture. It can be from infrastructure like dams and irrigation to what crops to grow, how you grow it, how you cultivate your soil to maybe how you do the monitoring with precision agriculture or maybe policymaking, normal setting, all of these system level things. You just need to have more conversations across the disciplines.
(36:53):
To just give an example, this summer I was spending quite significant time interviewing about a hundred people in the sector, from farmers to policymakers to professors. And even at Stanford, there are a lot of experts who are probably studying the same subject from different angles, who have either never spoken to each other or who had literal opportunity to really connect and given their intelligence and curiosity and research and all these things, the world would be a much better place if there are platforms for those people to really openly discuss what's on the table, what are the issues, how can we solve it? That really starts actually from accepting the fact that none of us will know enough, which is going to be only harder and harder as you grow your own expertise. But that's the starting point. And then we also have to accept there's uncertainty.
(37:45):
We also don't know as a result of this conversation, we'll have something presentable, but nonetheless we need to just take the step and have the conversation. Hopefully that is the very first step to really solve a problem that is requiring a lot of expertise, but a lot of underground voices too. So how do people on the ground respond to these ideas? That's another perspective we have to take. So that's what I'm hoping to achieve right now with the water and agriculture research right now. It so happened that there are so many different professions of people gathering to do the research, and we spent 15 weeks just building the ideas and then another four or five weeks writing the report. But none of us were expert enough to write everything and we consulted a number of experts along the journey. But that journey really helped me understand that the real missing piece in this is a place to have conversations.
Taylor Goss (38:40):
It's just like what drove you to your higher education experience, that search for collaboration and conversation. And I'm glad that we have someone like you Tomo out in the world searching for that vision. While we're closing up here, I want to do something that we ask every guest on Imagine A World. In the Knight-Hennessy application there's a section where we asked applicants to provide improbable facts about themselves, things that might not be guessed or might be surprising. How was the experience for you thinking of those improbable facts? Was it hard? Was it easy?
Tomo Kumahira (39:11):
Well, that's the worst part of the application. I really hated them.
Taylor Goss (39:14):
It took me the longest.
Tomo Kumahira (39:16):
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I will even share you another story. When I was applying for transfer application, when undergrad, I did consider Stanford. There was a question in the application saying, write a letter to your future roommate. And I was like, oh my God, this is too much for me. I just closed the laptop immediately. I never looked at it again. And when I saw the 10 improbable facts, that was, oh my God, this again, Stanford people.
Taylor Goss (39:42):
There's that feeling again.
Tomo Kumahira (39:44):
Yeah, I spent so much time on that.
Taylor Goss (39:47):
Okay, what came of the time? Would you be comfortable sharing one of your improbable facts with us?
Tomo Kumahira (39:52):
There are so many of the things that are so ridiculous. Looking back and looking back to your improbable fact is probably the worst thing you can do on Sunday morning.
Taylor Goss (39:59):
Oh, I think it's fun.
Tomo Kumahira (40:00):
But anyways, I'll go with the udon chef. So when I was in living in Nairobi, a friend of mine and I were hosting udon noodle parties every now and then. That became one of the big parties in the city, especially in the city. Well, I shouldn't overstate that. In the community, in the community around us.
Taylor Goss (40:22):
I bet it was super popular.
Tomo Kumahira (40:25):
It's a very covid vibe so we can go out and so forth. And what can we do to have fun? And actually it's very easy to create udon. You just need flour and water and salt and so forth. You can actually start cooking the entire noodle. So making the noodle from the flour and as we have conversation, we just make these things and we have tempura on the side and we throw a good party. That's the most fun experience in terms of having a party while making up the party, building a party by just making udon noodles. And I really recommend people doing that.
Taylor Goss (40:56):
Just bringing people together everywhere you go, whether it's water and agriculture or udon parties that are the most popular party in the entire country of Kenya.
Tomo Kumahira (41:06):
Well, the Kenyan people and hipsters know how to do parties. So I have only awe for that. Udons are great, water and flour. That sounds like my career. Perfect.
Taylor Goss (41:16):
One last question. Do you have any advice that you'd offer for other people who apply to Stanford and Knight-Hennessy?
Tomo Kumahira (41:21):
I get this question a lot when I'm talking to potential applicants. Think about what it means to be yourself. I was talking to a candidate who now become a scholar this year, and he asked me what he should be bearing in mind when he's doing the applications and interviews. And I said, well be your authentic self. And he shared with me later that it was the hardest advice he's received in the sense that it's actually very difficult to find the right point and right tone, right presence. You can imagine in the process you would probably see the bios of other people, as I said earlier, and that's all what we do anyways. But nonetheless, how can you just be yourself despite all the surroundings, how smart the person you're sitting right next to in the interview is, or how achieved and decorated other candidates and the bios are.
(42:09):
It really doesn't matter. And it is actually properly hard to think who you are and what you represent in a very authentic way, especially when you are under pressure. And with all these things we want to share things that are actually meaningful to yourself and myself and ourselves, and that really resonates with other people. So it's actually counterintuitive that if you actually be truly yourself, it inspires other people to see, oh, that's interesting. Instead of you trying to convince others. I think that the application would need less others and who you are is such a core component. And maybe if it's hardest, I'll say, what are the things that other people see in you? Those people, maybe your family members or friends who really like you or support you or believe in you. What do they see in you? And these are more important than what are the fancy things that you can do or what you can write on improbable facts.
Taylor Goss (43:06):
Beautifully said. So Tomo, if people want to read more about you or find more of your photography or just learn more about the multitude of amazing things about Tomo, where should they go?
Tomo Kumahira (43:17):
I have a blog, a Medium blog, so please follow me. You can search Tomo Kumahira. I'll make sure that the link is on the website. The research that I've worked on, water and agriculture, there's an industry overview of how things can be solved and what are the system that I talked about a lot. It's a big work, but it's really a helpful context for many people. So I hope that will be read by as many people as possible. So I also asked to attach a link on that too.
Taylor Goss (43:45):
Well, Tomo, thank you so much for the time you spent with me here today. It's a joy to see you around Denning House and wandering and dreaming around campus. Thank you for being a good friend. Thank you for offering your story with the world and thank you for imagining with me.
Tomo Kumahira (43:58):
Thank you so much for inviting. It was amazing to talk to you and this is very, again, another high passion, high enthusiasm conversation that I really enjoy.
Taylor Goss (44:10):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine aA World, where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson (44:27):
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media at @knighthennessy, and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.
