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In my capacity as Congress Chair, it is my pleasure to announce that Tokyo, the host city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, will also be the venue for the 57th Annual Congress of the JSPS, to be held from Thursday May 21 to Saturday May 23 2020, at the Toshi Center Hotel in Chiyoda-ku, central Tokyo. Coincidentally, our very first congress was held 55 years ago, in 1964, when Tokyo also hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games, an event that symbolized Japan’s postwar recovery.

The theme of the 57th Congress, "Championing children’s care” is a topical issue, because as of October 2018, the number of children in Japan, except for Tokyo and Okinawa, decreased for the 38th consecutive year. We have invited experts to speak about how pediatric surgical conditions are managed in areas with no pediatric surgical services and related issues. The sub-theme, “Case reports create surgeons”, will hopefully arouse the interest of younger colleagues. We have planned sessions during which complicated cases and rare conditions can be discussed in detail with eminent pediatric surgeons from Europe and the United States.

To date, Juntendo University has hosted the JSPS Congress three times; the 2nd Congress with Tamotsu Fukuda as Chair, the 12th Congress with Keijiro Suruga as Chair, and the 39th Congress with Takeshi Miyano as Chair. The Congress I am Chair of will be the fourth time that the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Juntendo University and the Alumni Association has been given the honor of hosting the JSPS Congress after a break of 18 years. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all members of the JSPS for entrusting this special opportunity to Juntendo again.

We have planned some special lectures during the Congress. Takeshi Miyano, a member of the board of Trustees of Juntendo Hospital and Professor emeritus at Juntendo University, will talk about “Late blooming devotion to a cause; What the Hakone Ekiden relay race means to this 70-year-old” and Masayuki Iwade, Professor, Institute of Sports Science and Medicine at Teikyo University and head coach of the Teikyo University rugby team, winner of the collegiate rugby championship 9 years consecutively will talk about "Organization and leadership: the power of a rugby ball” and participate in a talk session with Kazuhiko Honjo, Japan’s rugby superstar, former member of Waseda University’s Rugby Football Club, and former Japan National Team standoff.

Nobuhiko Horioka who graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Juntendo University, is currently the Chief Deputy Director of Health Policy and Medical Technology, General Affairs Division, Medical Affairs Bureau, at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and will give a lecture on "The Future of Work Style Reform. The Trinity Reform". In addition, we have three invited international speakers who will talk about pediatric surgical training in the wake of the wave of workplace reform that has occurred in Europe and the United States.

Hiroyuki Kobayashi (Professor of hospital administration at Juntendo University) will give a lecture on medical safety: "Aspects of pediatric surgery learnt from medical litigation”, and Tetsuya Nakamura (Professor of research and development for organoids, Juntendo University School of Medicine) will give a lecture on "The potential of organoids in the field of pediatric surgery".

Japan hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and rugby fever swept through the whole country as a result. Tokyo is making steady progress with preparations for the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020 that will transform the city once again. In the afternoon of the second day, we have arranged the Congress Reception, to be followed by visits to places like Asakusa, Tokyo Skytree, Harajuku, and Omotesando for sightseeing, and Akasaka, Shibuya, and Roppongi to experience nightlife.

I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to the Board of the JSPS for their full support for hosting this Congress. My staff have worked diligently with the Juntendo Pediatric Surgeons’ Alumni Association and the Juntendo University School of Medicine Alumni Association to organize a Congress that I hope will be both enjoyable and educational.

I look forward to meeting you just before the Olympics and Paralympics when Tokyo will be brimming with vitality.