Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, born in Tokyo in 1928, is a leading peace-activist and a prolific writer who has over 100 works published to his credit. As well as poetry, he writes on topics related to peace, education and the human condition.  As the third president of the Soka Gakkai (value-creating society) and the founder of the Soka Gakkai International, he has developed and inspired one of the largest movements characterized by its emphasis on individual empowerment and social engagement to promote peace, culture and education.

Dr. Ikeda’s life has been fundamentally shaped by his experience in World War II and his eldest brother’s accounts of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China. The search for a means to root out the fundamental cause of human conflict thus became a driving force in his life from a young age.

For his humanitarian endeavors in a range of fields, he has been conferred numerous awards, including the United Nations Peace Award. Dr. Ikeda’s pursuit to promote peace through humanism over the past 60 years has been recognized worldwide, for which he has received over 300 academic honors, the highest awarded to a single individual. He is the founder of the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research, and the Soka education system.