On February 5 and 6, President NASU Yasutomo attended the 8th Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) held in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. This major summit is organized annually by the West Bengal government and brings together policymakers, business leaders, business delegations, entrepreneurs, scholars, and research groups from across the region and around the world. The summit aims to build strategic business partnerships and learn about new industrial ecosystems and initiatives for the new era. The summit featured plenary sessions, sector-specific sessions for key industries, individual sessions with selected countries and regions, and business networking events.

President NASU presented on "Transformative Education: Positioning Bengal as the Education Hub of South Asia" and "Japan Session – Theme: Japan Supports West Bengal’s Drive for Human Resource Development & Business Growth." He discussed topics such as the Collaborative Research Center of Okayama University for Infectious Diseases in India, educational activities related to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Okayama region, and collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). He concluded his presentation by saying, “In the Okayama region, educational institutions and local governments are working in the same direction under the common theme of SDGs. The next generation of young people is incredibly important for us and for our future.”

Additionally, in conjunction with the summit, the faculty level agreement between Sister Nivedita University (SNU) and Okayama University’s Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in Health Systems was elevated to a university level agreement, and a signing ceremony was held at the summit. The ceremony was attended by Binod Kumar, IAS Secretary of the West Bengal State Schools and Higher Education Department; Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Vice Chancellor of SNU; Suman Chatterjee, Registrar of SNU; and from Okayama University, President NASU and Professor Emeritus SENOO Masaharu  (former Dean of the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in Health Systems). Since the initial agreement in March 2019, active exchanges have been taken place, including the visit of SNU members to Okayama University in February 2020 through the Japan Science and Technology Agency's Sakura Science Plan.

By participating in this large-scale summit and signing the new university-wide agreement with SNU, Okayama University aims to further develop its exchanges with SNU and promote mutual exchanges with universities in India, a key focus of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s initiative for building international academic exchanges with countries in the Global South. Through exchanges between students and faculty, Okayama University will contribute to the further development of education and research in both countries.