Disruptor Foundation & 1Future Present "THE DISRUPTOR AWARDS @HIROSHIMA" On Saturday October 28

CELEBRATION OF RESILIENCE, INNOVATION IN REBIRTH OF HIROSHIMA

HONOREES INCLUDE FMR. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DR. WILLIAM PERRY, ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVOR KOKO KONDO, & MORE

AWARDS TO COMPLEMENT "ZERO PROJECT" WORKSHOPS, ART EXHIBITIONS, & MUSIC ON OCTOBER 29

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Oct 25, 2017, 11:54 ET

NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Disruptor Foundation and 1Future will present the first edition of the DISRUPTOR AWARDS@ HIROSHIMA™ on Saturday, October 28-Sunday, October 29, 2017 at the world-renowned HIROSHIMA ORIZURU TOWER located in Hiroshima, Japan.

The DISRUPTOR AWARDS @HIROSHIMA™ represent the foundation's first international award ceremony that follows in the tradition of its Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards held annually during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The newly-launched edition in Hiroshima recognizes the achievements of a wide ranging group of innovators and social entrepreneurs across cultural, philanthropic, political, and technological domains. The awards will complement a cultural celebration, Zero Project, a thought-provoking series of roundtable discussions, creative workshops, art exhibitions, and music.

The DISRUPTOR FOUNDATION™ was founded in 2009 by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, father of Disruptive Innovation theory, Tribeca Film Festival Co-founder Craig Hatkoff, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the Center for Learning and Leadership. The foundation curates the annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards now celebrating its 9^th year. Past honorees include Lin Manuel Miranda, Keith Richards, Stanford Office of Technology and Licensing, the City of Manchester, the City of Pittsburgh, Twyla Tharp, Rhode Island School of Design, Tory Burch, the National Institutes of Health, Uber, AirBnB and Dr. Richard Leakey.

Founded by photographer, activist, and artist Cannon Hersey, 1Future encourages social change through art and community interaction. Hersey's grandfather, John Hersey, was the author of the groundbreaking book "Hiroshima" that exposed the harsh reality of the effects of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Hersey's "Hiroshima" was initially published in secret in an entire edition of the New Yorker magazine in 1946.

FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, DR. WILLIAM PERRY, who was at the forefront of efforts to dismantle the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals in the 1980s and '90s, will be a Lifetime Achievement honoree.

Hersey and DISRUPTOR AWARD honoree Akira Fujimoto open an art exhibition entitled Mirai Ju (Future Trees) Resilience on Friday, October 27. Meanwhile, Sunday, October 29 offers an immersive, engaging, and enriching experience for attendees. The day begins with a live painting session by awardee Seitaro Kuroda alongside elementary school students. Roundtable discussion will be led by Dr. William Perry and Hiroshima survivor Koko Kondo discussing human rights, Irwin Kula and Reverend Gashin Kayo tackle community, and Hatkoff and best-selling author Kyosuke Inoue will discuss innovation.

The event will serve as the kick off of an exchange of seedlings from the Hiroshima Survivor Trees and the Survivor Tree that survived the September 11, 2001 attacks and now stands at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

The Survivor Tree at the 9/11 Memorial has become a symbol of hope and resilience in the wake of the 2001 attacks. The tree got its name after it was nursed back to health when it was pulled from World Trade Center rubble. It was later replanted at the 9/11 Memorial.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum granted permission under its seedling program for Hatkoff to bring a seedling of its Survivor Tree to Hiroshima. ANT-Hiroshima, that oversees the 178 Survivor Trees in Hiroshima, have enlisted Hatkoff and Hersey to help bring a Hiroshima sapling to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

This symbolic exchange is particularly meaningful for Hatkoff who launched the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 with Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. The festival has helped revitalize lower Manhattan in the wake of 9/11. The festival, now going into its 17^th year, helped spawn a creative and cultural renaissance in post-9/11 New York City.

Disruptor Awards@Hiroshima Honorees:
Erika Abiko (Activist)
Kenji Ekuan (Designer)
Akira Fujimoto (Artist)
Kyosuke Inoue (Author)
Koko Kondo (Hiroshima Survivor)
Seitaro Kuroda (Artist)
Dr. William Perry (Fmr. Secretary of State)
Motoharu Sano (Musician)
Mori Shigeaki (Hiroshima Survivor)
Tomoko Watanabe (ANT-Hiroshima, Founder)