Synthetic Savants

As generative AI sweeps the world, how will it transform the way we work and innovate?

We live in an age of intelligent machines. Since the introduction of consumer-facing artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard over the past year, generative AI has transformed how people work around the world.

From $40 billion in 2022, the market size for generative AI will balloon to $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. First popularized through image generators, the technology has been applied in fields ranging from neuroscience to advertising, sometimes in surprising ways.

Generative AI programs like the large language models powering ChatGPT are trained on enormous volumes of data to sense patterns and predict how they will play out in a piece of content. These models can be trained on linguistic, financial, scientific, sensor, or other data—especially data that is uniform and structured—and can then create new content in response to user input. They have had remarkable success, particularly in image and text generation, and have seen rapid uptake in sectors ranging from education to computer programming. “This technology is set to fundamentally transform everything from science, to business, to healthcare … to society itself,” Accenture analysts enthused in a report. “The positive impact on human creativity and productivity will be massive.”

Powerful New Assistants

Generative AI first gained public attention thanks to its ability to change how we communicate through words, images, and video. It’s no wonder, then, that the world’s largest public relations company has embraced it. Edelman worked with OpenAI to launch the original ChatGPT-2 and delivered the first application in an ad campaign. In the spots for Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, the tool is tasked with finding new ways to use leftovers.

Edelman believes the technology will reconfigure the communications industry, but it won’t replace human ingenuity, strategic advice, and ethical decision-making that builds trust, said Meghan Barstow, president and representative director of Edelman Japan.

“We predict that AI will become an essential assistant in our work, helping to brainstorm, research, summarize, trend spot, monitor media, and generate content, among other tasks,” explained the ACCJ governor and chair of the chamber’s Communications Advisory Council. “The emphasis here is on ‘assistant,’ as we believe there will always be a human in the loop, that AI and people working together will provide the most effective and valuable work output.

“As with any technology, there are risks that require appropriate caution, education, processes, and policies to ensure the safe and trustworthy use of generative AI to protect our work, our clients, and end users from issues related to disinformation, bias, copyright infringement, and privacy.”

Similarly, lawyers such as Catherine O’Connell are also using generative AI as smart assistants. O’Connell is principal and founder of Catherine O’Connell Law and co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) Legal Services and IP Committee.

After taking a course on how to get the most out of ChatGPT, she has been using it for writing keynote speeches, article outlines, posts on social media, and skeletons of presentations. She compares the tool to a human intern, and praises its time-saving efficiencies, but warns that it should not be used for legal work, such as contracts or legal advice. Attorneys in the United States, she noted, have found themselves in trouble after producing legal filings referencing non-existent cases that generative AI simply made up.

“Generative AI is like a teenager that has a lot of promise but has not learned how to be a whole professional yet; it needs guidance,” said O’Connell. “However, in terms of an idea generator or idea expander, a time-saving device, and an assistive tool, generative AI is an asset. The rest falls to me to add my human touch to check and verify, to add my own personality and insights only I have, and to make the output my very own. I think generative AI is so good that its cousin, Google search, may be out of a job sometime soon.”

Smart Tools for Talent

Recruiting is another industry in which workers deal with mountains of structured data, in the form of resumes and online posts, that can be utilized by AI. Robert Half Japan, an ACCJ Corporate Sustaining Member company, uses a system called AI Recommended Talent (ART) to match resumes to client needs. The system speeds up matching for job hunters and employers, allowing staff to spend more time with clients.

“The real power of generative AI is how much it can integrate with our existing systems,” explained Steven Li, senior division director for cybersecurity. “We are piloting ChatGPT-4 integration in our Salesforce CRM. Studies have shown benefits from integrating generative AI into workflows. Other industry examples that highlight the benefit of integration include the GitHub CoPilot generative AI feature.”

The effectiveness of AI in recruiting has led some people to speculate that it could render many human recruiters obsolete. Deep learning algorithms are figuring out what a good resume looks like, and generative AI can craft approach messages and InMails, a form of direct message on the popular LinkedIn platform, noted Daniel Bamford, Robert Half’s associate director for technology.

“However, the real value of agency recruitment is not, and never was, a simple job-description-to-resume matching service,” added Bamford. “Agency recruitment done well is a wonderful journey of problem-solving, involving the goals of organizations and teams and the values and desires of individuals. Excellent recruiters will thrive. They will use AI’s capacity to handle simple tasks like scheduling and shortlisting. This will free up time for high-value interactions, delivering even greater value for their partners and industries through the human touch. The future of excellent recruiters will be brighter with AI’s support.”

Tracking Ships and Patients

Even a traditionally hardware-oriented industry like logistics is being transformed by generative AI. Shipping giant Maersk is using a predictive cargo arrival model to help customers reduce costs with more reliable supply chains. It also wants to harness the power of AI to recommend solutions when shipping routes are congested, advising on whether goods should be flown or stored, and better understand the sales process, Navneet Kapoor, Maersk’s chief technology and information officer, told CNBC.

Maurice Lyn, head of Managed by Maersk for Northeast Asia, also sees great potential in the technology. “The biggest changes that I foresee will be related to the enhanced visibility into, and agility of the management of, the global supply chains of our clients on an execution level,” he told The ACCJ Journal. “The data aggregated will allow logistics service providers [LSPs] to deliver predictive and proactive solutions to our clients. If clearly interpreted by the LSPs, stability and uniformity of costs and deliverables will be provided globally and locally to our clients.”

Generative AI may even help us live longer, healthier lives via long-term patient monitoring. Sydney-based medical AI startup Prospection recently launched its first generative-AI model in Japan to analyze anonymized patient data for pharmaceutical companies so they can better understand patient needs. A Japanese drug company, for instance, could look at cancer patient outcomes across the country and find that they are slightly worse in a particular region, possibly because less-effective drugs are prescribed there.

Founded in 2012 and operating in Australia, Japan, and the United States, Prospection now has data on half a billion patients. For the first 10 years, it was using traditional AI methods, but generative AI has opened new services for the company. Users can query Prospection’s AI services about typical pathways for patients who took a certain drug, or what therapy they underwent after quitting the medication. A Prospection model can predict whether a patient will experience a certain event, such as needing to be hospitalized, over the next year.

“The ChatGPT transformer model is trained on billions of sentences consisting of words. We see each patient’s journey as the sentence and events in the journey as the words. That’s the vocabulary,” said Eric Chung, co-founder and co-CEO of Prospection. “The data is very powerful. There are lots of insights to be gained from data on 500 million patients. It’s beyond the power of humans to analyze, but AI can do it.”

Strengthening Cyber Risk Management

Keidanren collaboration delivers book with practical advice to corporate leaders

As concern about cyber risk grows in Japan, a new book by veteran American Chamber of Commerce in Japan member and Marsh Japan, Inc. Senior Vice President Ted Sato aims to help corporate management find the most effective approach to mitigating risk and effectively responding to events.

Sato authored the book with Toshinori Kajiura, a member of Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) and a senior researcher for information and communications technology policy at Hitachi. Kajiura was previously chair of Keidanren’s Working Group on Cybersecurity Enhancement.

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🔼 Watch the video above for more insights from Sato himself.

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Published in February by the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, a Japanese industry newspaper, Strengthening Cyber Risk Management: A Keidanren Handbook to Cyber Risk Management is designed to provide corporate managers with practical guidance for dealing with cyber risk.

Not to be confused with cybersecurity, cyber risk is defined by the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology as the “risk of financial loss, operational disruption, or damage from the failure of the digital technologies employed for informational and/or operational functions introduced to a manufacturing system via electronic means from the unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of the manufacturing system.”

Sato told The ACCJ Journal that the book, which spans more than 200 pages, was written by professionals from the battlefield in easy-to-understand language. “We wanted corporate managers to be able to ask effective questions at the earliest stages of any cyber risk event. That is very important.”

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“We wanted corporate managers to be able to ask effective questions at the earliest stages of any cyber risk event. That is very important.”

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The idea came after a series of events last May which Sato conceived with Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun. The well-received sessions showed corporate managers how to deal with cyber risk, not solely as a technical issue but to emphasize management and factors related to organizational culture.

Keidanren had been hosting its own events since 2014, working to change the mind-set of corporate management on this critical issue. The organization built on Sato’s efforts to bring together professionals with similar motivation to create the Cyber Risk Management Japan Study Group, which was a supporting contributor to the book.

These efforts were also supported by the late Hiroaki Nakanishi, who was chair of Hitachi and Keidanren and contributed the foreword.

The book’s core advice draws on a 2014 report by the Internet Security Alliance and the National Association of Corporate Directors’ handbook on cyber risk, which recommends a one-team approach to corporate management. Beginning with the importance of expert advice from outside the company, the book advises an “art of science” approach that balances technology, human factor management, and operational excellence to ensure an organization’s readiness, response and recovery, and recurrence prevention.

The book has been well received by reviewers for its practical guidance.

“It is very meaningful to promote cooperation with experienced US firms at this early stage for Japanese companies,” Sato said. “If all goes well, next we plan to make an English version to share in Asia.”

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Investing in Biotech

From plastics that melt in the sea to cultured foie gras, Japan is pushing innovative technologies forward with government support

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Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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In terms of taste, IntegriCulture’s prototype cultured foie gras has been praised by culinary experts as having a good balance of richness and sweetness.

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A decade on from Dr. Shinya Yamanaka’s win of a Nobel Prize for his research into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, Japan is lagging in bringing biotechnology to a market forecast to grow to up to $4 trillion by 2040.

To help capture this huge opportunity, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) revealed plans last fall for an $8 billion (¥1 trillion) fund to support biomanufacturing. The field encompasses technologies that leverage genetic technology to maximize the ability of microorganisms to produce substances.

Hirokazu Shimoda, director of METI’s Bio-Industry Division, explained why the country plans to go big on bio.

“It is only a matter of time before the global manufacturing industry is replaced by bioprocesses,” he said. “That’s why we are making medium- to long-term investments on the scale of about ¥1 trillion to build a system for companies in the biotechnology and drug discovery markets to develop and manufacture in Japan, then earn money in the global marketplace.”

As well as driving economic growth, biomanufacturing is also expected to be key in solving global issues such as marine pollution, global warming, and food shortages. Some top players in Japan’s biomanufacturing field are already making a difference in those areas.

Green Planet

In 2011, Kaneka Corporation achieved the world’s first commercial production of plastic that degrades in the ocean. The Osaka-based company plans to quadruple the production capacity of its biodegradable biopolymer called Green Planet to 20,000 tons in January 2024.

Kaneka began developing Green Planet in the early 1990s, when global environmental problems such as global warming began to emerge. The project was launched due to the strong desire of researchers to provide environmentally friendly products that don’t depend on fossil fuels.

Green Planet has qualified for the BiomassPla Identification and Labelling system, awarded to materials composed of biomass. It has also received the OK Biodegradable MARINE certification, issued by TÜV Austria Belgium NV/SA for materials that biodegrade in seawater.

Osaka-based Kaneka Corporation plans to quadruple the production capacity of its biodegradable biopolymer called Green Planet to 20,000 tons in January 2024.

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Currently, Green Planet is used in straws, plastic shopping bags, cutlery, food containers and agricultural supplies. Seedling pots made with the material can be left to biodegrade after being buried in the soil. Kaneka is studying the material’s effects on natural cycles, including changes to bacteria in the soil.

“The focus of our research is to expand the range of physical applications for which Green Planet can be used,” explains Dr. Shunsuke Sato, a researcher at Kaneka’s Agri-Bio & Supplement Research Laboratories. According to the company’s own estimates, the combined annual production volume of plastic alternatives in Japan, the United States, and Europe currently is about 25 million tons. The market for Green Planet as a substitute for traditional plastic is expected to expand as regulations tighten and awareness grows.

Looking to capture this demand, Kaneka is focusing on carbon dioxide (CO2) as a new raw material for mass production of Green Planet. The goal is to recycle CO2 using microorganisms thereby creating a new process of manufacturing that can address both environmental problems and economic development. Sato explains: “We have the technology to do this in the lab. For mass production, we need to develop a culture process that efficiently converts gas components, such as CO2 and H2 [Dihydrogen], into Green Planet.”

Redefining Meat

Culturing has deep roots. For hundreds of years, humans have used and improved upon it to make wine, cheese, and more. In recent years, new culturing techniques have unlocked the process for making lab-grown cultured meat, redefining what we believed to be possible.

One pioneer of this movement is IntegriCulture Inc. As competition in the development of cultured meat heats up globally, this Japanese startup is the world’s first to succeed in producing cultured foie gras. Dr. Yuki Hanyu, IntegriCulture’s CEO, began research in 2014 on the CulNet System, a unique cell culture technology for manufacturing cultured meat. In 2019, he completed a prototype of cultured foie gras using duck liver cells.

The expansion of the worldwide market for cultured meat provides a tailwind for development. According to market forecasts by US consultancy A.T. Kearney, cultured meat will make up 35 percent of the meat market by 2040. Hanyu believes that the spread of cultured meat will depend on price, taste, and consumers’ belief in its safety.

In terms of taste, IntegriCulture’s prototype cultured foie gras has been praised by culinary experts as having a good balance of richness and sweetness. The first commercial sales are planned for 2024 in Singapore, a market with a precedent. In 2020, Singapore approved the sale of cultured chicken developed by a US company. Domestically, IntegriCulture is aiming to begin sales in 2025, but Japan’s screening standards for areas such as safety have not yet been decided.

Kaneka researcher Shunsuke Sato

IntegriCulture CEO Yuki Hanyu

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The potential advantages that come with cultured meat are enormous. IntegriCulture’s CulNet System makes it possible to produce cultured meat at about one ten-thousandth the cost of conventional culture methods. With conventional methods of cultivation, ingredients contained in the blood, such as the serum necessary for cell culture, are expensive and seen as an obstacle to commercialization. However, with CulNet System, IntegriCulture has succeeded in maintaining the appropriate nutritional content without using expensive ingredients. It can also culture cells from various animals including fish.

IntegriCulture plans to sell the CulNet System to food manufacturers and other organizations, and to work together with them to develop technologies that will enable mass production.

“Leveraging our core strength of engineering technology, we want our system to find its proper place in the world,” said Hanyu, who first got involved in so-called cellular farming because he wanted to make the cultured meat he read about as a child in science fiction novels. To this day, he continues to strategize about what he can make with biotechnology, taking inspiration from his beloved world of science fiction.

Companies such as Kaneka and IntegriCulture are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Japanese biotechnology’s true potential. “Japan is good at the zero-to-one stage of research and development, but is often less adept at scaling up as an industry on the global level,” explains Kaneka’s Sato. That’s exactly what METI aims to change, helping these pioneers and other like them with the funding they need to mass produce and commercialize their innovative biotechnologies.

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Setting the Stage for Green Transformation

Japan gathers leaders and experts for key conference on decarbonization

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Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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If renewable energy production is not doubled by 2030, power outages and energy system disruptions could become everyday affairs. The World Meteorological Organization’s State of Climate Services annual report, released on October 11, has found that nations around the world are far off the 7.1-terawatt target needed to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Setting 2050 net-zero goals is well and good, but it is clear even more immediate action is needed.

To help the international community rise to what may be this generation’s greatest challenge, and to showcase some of the technology that will assist the world in meeting it, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) organized Tokyo GX (Green Transformation) Week. The 10-day event, which ran from September 26 to October 7, was a series of 10 international conferences focused on the many aspects of GX. The conferences covered everything from clean energy sources to carbon capture, highlighted some of the latest technological developments in a wide variety of fields, and explored joint policy frameworks in Asia.

Tokyo GX Week wrapped up a month ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), which was held November 6–20 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The GX Week conferences looked ahead to the issues that this key global gathering would address. Japan will also host the G7 meeting next year, and world leaders can build on the groundwork established during Tokyo GX Week to reach ambitious and sustainable strategies that will influence the future of our planet.

Inaugural Meeting

More than 140 countries aim to be carbon neutral by 2050, but achieving this goal is no simple matter. GX offers a way forward. The strategy is a bold one, and seeks to bring about a change in economic, social, and industrial structures, so that they are driven by clean energy and spur economic growth and development through emissions mitigation.

To drive this strategy, METI hosted the inaugural Global Green Transformation Conference (GGX) on October 7, the final day of Tokyo GX Week. GGX was the first time that leaders and industry experts gathered to begin charting a path towards global GX.

The GGX addressed everything from how to incentivize the public and companies to turn to green products and services to introducing a new way to evaluate the reduction in CO2 emissions by using these products and services. It also tackled the tough questions related to establishing a more workable framework for decarbonization and rule-making that will help the whole world thrive.

Drawing the World

The conference was held in a hybrid format and more than 1,300 people attended online and in person. Given the significance of the event, it drew an impressive selection of participants. Speakers and panelists included representatives from five G7 countries, two international organizations, and 12 universities as well as research institutes and private companies.

Keynote speeches were delivered by prominent speakers from around the world:

• Shinichi Nakatani, state minister of METI
• John Kerry, special presidential envoy for climate from the United States
• Peter Bakker, president and chief executive officer of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
• Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Commission
• Mathias Cormann, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
• The Right Honorable Lord Callanan, parliamentary under secretary of state (minister for business, energy, and corporate responsibility) of the United Kingdom
• Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency

In his keynote address, Nakatani pointed out that the time for the world to act is now and highlighted some of the ways in which Japan has set a rigorous path for itself.

“First, by the end of the year, we will formulate a 10-year roadmap for GX investment, which aims to realize ¥1.1 trillion in investment through public–private sector cooperation over the next 10 years,” he explained. “Second, we will establish the GX League, a voluntary emissions trading framework for companies with ambitious reduction targets, which will be fully operational by 2023. And third, we will promote transition finance in the industrial sector, particularly high emissions industries.”

State Minister Shinichi Nakatani delivers his keynote address.

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Nakatani also introduced the key topic of “mitigation contribution”—a means of evaluating the positive effects of a company’s influence on decarbonization that may lie outside its supply chain or national boundaries. The topic was subsequently referred to as “avoided emissions” at COP27. He explored this by presenting the example of a company selling heat pumps. If inefficient gas heating systems are replaced by efficient heat pumps the company produces, this may lead to a reduction in total global emissions. However, the company’s own emissions may rise due to the increased production of the heat pumps. While such a company is positively contributing to global emission reduction, it may be criticized for increasing emissions. This does not undermine the crucial importance of emission reduction from the company, but clearly indicates the need to recognize a new perspective.

Currently, mainstream frameworks focus on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a specific organization or entity, and it is key to continue to support the efforts based on these frameworks. But if a mechanism can be created to appropriately value avoided emissions, and resources such as finance can be directed to entities that are promoting these efforts, it will encourage the diffusion of green products and services and promote the achievement of net-zero emissions through economic growth.

Avoided emissions are being explored in the private sector through international partnerships, but if governments begin to support the concept and encourage more companies to incorporate it in their decarbonization efforts, it can lead to greater innovation across a wide swath of industries.

Looking ahead to the G7 in Hiroshima next year, Nakatani was optimistic.

“While each country has its own position, Japan will support the world’s GX while furthering international goals so that developing and developed countries will work in unison to promote initiatives that transcend barriers,” he said.

The G7 and other international forums will also offer the Japanese government opportunities to further discuss and refine the avoided emissions concept.

In his initial remarks, Peter Bakker put the task of the conference in stark relief, given the need to develop a strategy to combat climate change.

“We need full-fledged system transformation … We need to change everything,” he said. “The energy we use, the food we eat, the transport solutions that we look for. Therefore, being here at the Global Green Transformation Conference is a unique opportunity to engage with all of you about what needs to happen.”

First Movers

GGX was also groundbreaking because it marked the first event in Asia for the First Movers Coalition (FMC) of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The coalition was launched in November 2021, following COP26, with a distinct aim to decarbonize key economic sectors—such as materials and long-range transportation—which are critical to organizations around the world, but which generate 30 percent of annual GHG emissions.

More than 50 companies are members of the FMC and, as Nancy Gillis, program head for Climate Action and the FMC with the WEF, explained, their participation sends a message.

“When a company joins the First Movers Coalition, what they are doing is signing a demand commitment,” she explained. “That means that they are making a commitment to buy products and services [as] they do now. But instead of buying the products and services that they’ve bought historically, they choose those with more GHG emissions consequences.”

Gillis said the FMC is a natural fit for Japan, given the country’s dedication to innovative, green technologies. She added that transportation company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. made an ideal member of the FMC, and its commitment to decarbonization can drive innovation in many fields. Toshiaki Tanaka, the company’s representative director and executive vice president, explained that the time was right to join the coalition: “What we need now is to take concrete actions to reduce our value chain emissions. But at the same time, we are going beyond the value chain and taking urgent action to mitigate emissions outside of our value chain by supporting emerging [carbon dioxide removal] technologies. Therefore, we decided to take part in the First Movers Coalition, a platform where we can leverage our collective purchasing power to develop and scale zero carbon technologies.”

From left: Nancy Gillis, Shinichi Nakatani, Acting Deputy Chief of Mission for the US Embassy in Japan Philip Roskamp, and Toshiaki Tanaka at the FMC in Japan panel discussion.

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Towards a Greener Society

Other panel discussions during GGX tackled the ways in which GX can be implemented in markets, the setting of standards, and international cooperation. “Designing a Green Market” explored methods for reducing emissions from the perspectives of supply and demand. Panelists agreed that there is no single policy that will lead to net-zero GHG emissions, but that it is necessary to create an environment which leads to the greater diffusion of green products.

The topic of avoided emissions was a recurring theme during the conference, and in the panel discussion “Standards and Evaluations Promoting Green Products/Services,” participants explored it in detail. They concurred that it is important to expand evaluation frameworks beyond the reduction of supply chain emissions to consider how countries and companies are helping cut GHG emissions through indirect means.

One key point that needs to be addressed when it comes to avoided emissions is to which products and sectors efforts can be applied. Participants in the discussion brought up the idea that it is important to establish clear differences between avoided emissions and existing GHG protocols and nationally determined contributions (NDCs), because the concept’s importance lies in additionally evaluating the contribution to global emission reduction, rather than undermining the efforts of a company to reduce its own emissions.

Panelists also pointed out that it is necessary to establish a strict method for evaluating avoided emissions. For example, subtracting avoided emissions from NDCs and Scope 1–3—that is, a company’s direct and indirect emissions—would be a form of greenwashing, and should be avoided when establishing these guidelines.

Finally, in the panel discussion “International Cooperation for Developing a Green Society,” participants delved into the thorny topic of working across borders to develop decarbonization strategies. The participants pointed out the importance of recognizing each country’s circumstances in setting cross-border policies. Considering the increasing dichotomy between the positions of developed and developing countries, the importance of developing a society which realizes both economic growth and emission reduction was also raised as an important topic. Business is an important enabler for these societies, and frameworks such as the Joint Crediting Mechanism—a system by which developed nations collaborate with developing nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and business in adaptation could offer win–win actions for both developed and developing countries.

Following on the insightful conversations at GGX, METI hosted an event at COP27 about avoided emissions. During the session, the WBCSD—which founded the Scope 1–3 standards—gave an overview of their developing guidance for the concept. METI has also included countries such as the United Arab Emirates, host of COP28, and the United States, as well as representatives of the financial sector, including members of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, in the discussion.

Conversations that began at GGX are expanding to a wider group of stakeholders, and next year, when Japan hosts the G7 meeting, METI will escalate the dialogue on these key issues that will help future generations live on a greener Earth.

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Home-Grown Unicorns

Japanese startup investment poised to accelerate

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Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (center) alongside award-winning startup founders.

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There are 488 unicorns in the United States and 170 in China. Japan is home to just 11. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is on a mission to narrow this gap.

The first step is identifying the barriers to global success for Japanese startups.

A combination of factors is hindering the development of Japan’s startup ecosystem, explained Shinpei Ago, deputy director-general for startup policy in the agency’s Minister’s Secretariat. Firstly, the entrepreneur population is relatively small. Rather than starting or joining startups, a lot of Japan’s top talent is being scooped up straight from university by big companies. Secondly, venture capital (VC) funds operating in Japan are small compared with those in many countries. And Japanese startups are often too focused on the domestic market and lack a global mindset.

Shinpei Ago, deputy director-general for startup policy in the Minister’s Secretariat of METI shares the latest on the startup environment in Japan.

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All these issues are intertwined, so a piecemeal approach that tackles each one by one will not be effective. Instead, Ago concludes, a cross-ministry initiative featuring a comprehensive set of policy measures addressing all the challenges at once is needed.

In June, Japan’s Cabinet Office approved the Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism: Investing in People, Technology, and Startups. The plan includes the formulation of a five-year roadmap for nurturing Japan’s startup ecosystem.

Agencies will also explore how to free up entrepreneurs from systems which discourage them from taking risks—specifically, the practice of requiring entrepreneurs to extend personal guarantees for loans from financial institutions, thus making them liable to repay debt. While the government-backed Japan Finance Corporation already provides loans to some startups without personal guarantees, this type of financing is set to be expanded.

To grow the talent pool for startups, METI is considering expanding its Exploratory IT Human Resources Project, also known as the MITOU Program, which aims to discover and nurture top IT talent. More than 2,000 people have completed the program since its launch in FY2000, and more than 300 have successfully started a business or brought a product to market. Well-known alumni include Miku Hirano, chief executive officer and founder of Cinnamon Inc., an artificial intelligence development company, and Ken Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Smart News Inc., developer of Japan’s leading news curation app.

The government’s new approach to working with international VC funds is sure to draw attention. Beyond capital, VC funds also bring valuable expertise on how to grow businesses, manage talent, and build rich networks. Partnering with international VC funds helps Japan expand opportunities to nurture fledgling domestic startups.

Japan has experienced a quiet renaissance as startup investments increased nine-fold between 2013 and 2021. That trend may be set to continue with the emergence of even more globally minded entrepreneurs.

One Japanese startup looking beyond Japan is Astroscale.

CEO Nobu Okada (third from left) and the management of Astroscale pose with a satellite designed to test core technologies necessary for cleaning up space debris. Photo: Astroscale

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In the nine years since its founding, the on-orbit servicing company has leveraged its prowess in the deep tech sector to global acclaim. Time magazine named Astroscale to its TIME100 Most Influential Companies list in 2022.

Space debris is a truly global issue. More than 35,000 objects orbit Earth, including defunct satellites and upper bodies of rockets. A collision with these objects traveling at eight kilometers per second could greatly damage working satellites, potentially affecting national security, telecommunications, television broadcasts, and much more. Major disruptions could put us back 70 years.

The secret to Astroscale’s success lies in founder and CEO Nobu Okada’s pioneering of a completely new market—so new that some said it didn’t exist even on a global stage. From the start, he had a firm commitment to global business development. While many startups launch in Japan and aim to go global after achieving domestic success, working globally from the start primes a business for success and helps it avoid competing over the smaller domestic pool of funding, Okada said.

METI hopes that the success of new homegrown ventures such as Astroscale, combined with greater government support, will inspire and encourage more entrepreneurs to be bold enough to shoot for the stars.

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Deepening Africa–Japan Business Ties

Investment in people, innovation, and sustainable energy to play a key role at the TICAD 8 conference

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Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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Dots for’s Carlos Oba (third from left) and Emmanuel Agossou (far left) in a village close to Zagnanado, Benin.

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On August 27 and 28, the Republic of Tunisia will host an international conference dedicated to deepening the economic ties between Japan and the 54 nations that make up the continent of Africa. Japan has taken the lead in the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, otherwise known as TICAD, since 1993, when TICAD 1 was held in Tokyo. Meetings take place every three years, and the Tunisian gathering—TICAD 8—is only the second to be held in Africa.

While the number of Japanese companies active in Africa has doubled over the past decade to more than 900, Japan continues to lag the European Union, the United States, China, and India. The Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) is focused on encouraging Japanese businesses to support sustainable growth in Africa through projects that address vital social needs, leverage digital transformation, provide technical skills training, and boost renewable power generation.

TICAD 8 comes as foreign direct investment in Africa more than doubled between 2020 and 2021 to about $83 billion, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. This underscores the vital and timely role of Japan–Africa relations ahead of the upcoming gathering of African leaders, development partners, and international and regional organizations, along with representatives of the private sector.

As former METI Minister Koichi Hagiuda told attendees of a TICAD 8 preview event, “Japan sees three key catalysts for partnership opportunities with Africa.” He went on to highlight how compelling demographics mean one in four people will be African by 2050 and noted that a digital revolution is driving a thriving startup scene. He added that, as Africans seek alternative ways to grow their economies, the opportunities for green growth projects will increase.

Digital Revolution

Carlos Oba is a good example of how Japanese expertise is helping fuel digital startups in Africa. He is co-founder of Dots for Inc., a tech startup launched in October 2021 with a mission to provide internet access to 200 million people living in rural areas of West Africa by 2030.

While it was a trip through Tanzania in East Africa that opened Oba’s eyes to how people living in rural areas are being left behind as the digitalization wave sweeps through larger towns and cities, Dots for’s initial projects have been in West Africa, beginning with Benin in December 2021 and Senegal the following year.

Emmanuel Agossou, the Dots for country manager in Benin, said the challenges are daunting. “Most of our clients are farmers, often with just primary-level education and small incomes from farms and fisheries—though we also have a few university students, graduates, and teachers,” he explained. “They live in villages where there is almost no electricity and no—or very weak—mobile network coverage and internet.”

That lack of universal online access is fueling a rapidly widening disparity between rural and urban areas of Africa, and Oba was prompted to action when he realized major digital players would be reluctant to invest based on low foreseeable profits.

Dots for was awarded just over $300,000 in seed money from two projects initiated by METI: AfDX and J-Partnership. The funding has enabled Oba and his co-founder, Sho Nakata, to develop d.CONNECT, a distributed wireless network communication infrastructure that brings the internet to African villages at extremely low cost. This is accomplished through Wi-Fi routers equipped with mesh network technology, which cuts out dead zones and can provide uninterrupted Wi-Fi.

Residents connected to the village wireless network can use their smartphones to access services and digital content stored on a server also installed in the village. Oba envisions a “smart village,” where users can use online platforms for distance learning, telemedicine, and crowd work. Not only is this meant to improve overall convenience, but the ability to access government and corporate digital services may also boost income and quality of life.

Residents of a village close to Zagnanado, trying out smartphones

“As the Dots for services expand, villagers will get strong internet connectivity and digital platforms to boost their business, education, and work opportunities,” Agossou said. “Young people may be able to work remotely from their village homes, without the need to trek to the big cities, where they would be forced to live apart from their families.”

The system is operated on a subscription basis, targeting users who can see the prospective advantages and are prepared to commit to making ongoing payments. According to Agossou, Dots for employs local agents in or near villages who promote the services either face-to-face with farmers or in village meetings that include young people and village heads. The emphasis is on explaining the advantages of the service to the community as well as to those looking to run businesses, he added.

The service has been successful in helping men and women aged 23 to 45 find steady jobs, Agossou said. But the reality of life in an African village remains harsh, and he notes that payment challenges exist for villagers with small incomes as well as university students and new graduates who have yet to find employment. As a result, Dots for is testing a lower-fee business model to boost client interest.

Based on forecast population increases, and the rising desire to be connected, the need for the company’s offerings is likely to extend to other African nations.

“Dots for services have a huge potential market, and I can see the model expanding from Benin to many other French- and English-speaking African countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, to name just a few,” Agossou noted.

Sharing Skills

Japan is also committed to providing high-quality technical training to 5,000 young Africans over the next three years.

In Kenya, METI is cooperating with the Kenyan Association of Manufacturers (KAM) to promote training for human capital in the Kenyan manufacturing industry. METI seeks not only to raise technical levels throughout the entire Kenyan manufacturing industry, but to enhance the Japanese presence in the former British colony.

In February, METI dispatched a specialist team to Kenya, which conducted a 10-day guidance program. A further eight-day program was directed by similar specialists in June.

In May, representatives of the Kenyan Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development, together with KAM, were sent to Thailand, where they took part in third-party training conducted by Japanese experts.

Among KAM’s client companies is Nairobi-based Plast Packaging Industries Ltd., a family-run business involved in the manufacture of environmentally friendly plastic bottling, packaging, and printing products. The company participated in a technical guidance program during which Japanese experts installed sensors on factory equipment and instructed program participants on how to apply the gathered data.

“Japanese technology has helped us monitor our production capacity on a real-time basis,” said Group Chief Executive Officer Mary Ngechu.

The sensors were installed at the Plast Packaging production line without disrupting operations. As a result, production efficiency has improved. This should also have a knock-on impact on sales, she added.

Ngechu has been impressed with the devotion of the Japanese engineers. “The Japanese team are committed to ensuring any project they spearhead goes to completion and that the companies benefit,” she said. “They have offered immeasurable support to me and my family in our business, and we look forward to partnering with them in different areas.”

Mary Ngechu

A METI team visited Plast Packaging in May 2022.

Future Power

At the Second Japan–Africa Public-Private Economic Forum, held on May 3 in Nairobi, participating countries reaffirmed their commitment to green energy. Given the number of African states, and the different issues they face, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to green-energy requirements. METI’s stance is that the most realistic approach is for each nation to select the path that best suits its needs.

To solve the challenges of limited supply and higher costs for electricity, due to power generation through heavy fossil fuel use and power importation from neighboring countries, Toyota Tsusho Corporation has conducted studies financed by METI on the feasibility of solar power generation with battery storage in several countries, including Zambia, Angola, Eritrea, and Benin. One possible approach using this method is to store power generated during the day in batteries and discharge this energy at night.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly growing population, the Egyptian government is targeting the supply of 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2022 via initiatives that include onshore wind power created with support from Japan.

Toyota Tsusho and its subsidiary, the renewable-energy company Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation, in partnership with France’s Engie and Egypt’s Orascom Construction PLC, have developed the 262.5-megawatt Ras Ghareb Wind Energy project. The wind farm is located on the west coast of Gulf of Suez, 260 kilometers southeast of Cairo. This project raised $320 million of limited recourse financing, of which the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) provided $192 million as overseas investment loans. The remaining $128 million came from commercial lenders Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Societe Generale as loans covered by Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) Overseas Untied Loan Insurance.

The Ras Ghareb Wind Energy project is the first independent wind-power production project in the country. After reaching financial close in December 2017, it began commercial operation in October 2019—two months ahead of schedule. With 125 wind turbines, it continues to generate enough electricity to power 500,000 Egyptian households.

In December 2019, a €110 million project-financing loan agreement for the Taza onshore wind farm in Morocco—led by Parc Eolien de Taza, the shareholders of which are EDF Renewable and Mitsui & Co., Ltd.—was signed by JBIC, the Bank of Africa, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and MUFG Bank, Ltd. The funds provided by the latter two commercial banks were insured by the state-owned export credit agency NEXI. The electricity generated by the project will be bought by Office National de L’Électricité et de l’Eau Potable, Morocco’s public electricity and water company.

Wind power is beginning to play a key role in the energy mix of nations such as Egypt and Morocco.

Kenya has committed to the realization of a green, hydrogen-based society as it looks to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and has established a working group led by the Ministry of Energy. A strategy and roadmap are currently being drawn up, and institutional design and development of pilot projects will follow.

Japan’s public and private sectors are expected to work together to lead the development of greener energy resources. For the 2022 fiscal year, Toyota Tsusho and METI have decided to implement a feasibility study on green-hydrogen value chain development in Kenya. This study aims to pursue the formation and commercialization of pilot projects which lead to a green economy. The goals of such projects include unlocking the potential of green hydrogen as a new energy source through various industries, such as freight and passenger transportation, port cargo handling, steelmaking, fertilizer manufacturing, and alternative fuel and electricity storage solutions.

Financial Foundation

Project finance is risky in some respects. The special-purpose vehicle set up to run the project has limited underlying capital, and repayment of loans is funded only from project proceeds, which can take years to come to fruition. Such long-term finance risk is higher in developing countries.

One way to mitigate risk is to have loans insured by organizations such as NEXI, which provides coverage for loans made by private-sector Japanese banks to overseas businesses in which Japanese companies participate. NEXI was founded in 1993 and, according to a NEXI International Relations Group spokesperson, a high-level African focus has been in place since TICAD 1, which was held the same year in Tokyo.

In December 2020, NEXI insured a $520 million loan made to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) by Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Ltd. and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Co., Ltd. as support for the Pandemic Trade Impact Mitigation Facility (PATIMFA) for African countries affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the PATIMFA program, the money is being widely used to support medical care, hygiene, environmental, and educational projects in Africa.

The spokesperson also revealed that NEXI has decided to participate in a telecommunications project in Ethiopia—jointly conducted by Sumitomo Corporation and Vodafone Group Plc of the United Kingdom—which began in May. The project will be reinsured by the African Trade Insurance Organization (ATI) based on a memorandum of cooperation concluded in 2019 at TICAD 7 in Yokohama.

Leading up to TICAD 8, NEXI is planning to host joint webinars with Afreximbank and ATI as side events to introduce these projects in more depth, the spokesperson said.

Tunisia is in an optimal position to host TICAD 8 given its unique geographical advantage as the gateway to the continent, as well as being an important partner for Japan in the Middle East and Africa. The conference has won the broad support of the African states, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is scheduled to attend. Tunisian President Kais Saied will chair the conference—a role which he is scheduled to share with Macky Sall, president of the Republic of Senegal and chairperson of the African Union.

Backed by more stable funding sources for clean energy projects, high-level training facilities, and the rapid uptake of digital services across the continent, TICAD 8 is on its way to securing a firmer and more deeply founded relationship between Japan and Africa as we move toward 2050.

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Sushi Singularity

3D printers offer a vision and taste of future food—but will consumers embrace it?

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Is this a glimpse of the future of food? Japanese scientists and companies are developing 3D food printers to produce sushi, wagyu, and a host of other foods. They say the technology holds great promise for personalizing food to meet nutritional needs, reducing food waste, and even providing something to eat during extended space travel. “I think there’s huge potential. Food itself will probably change,” said Yamagata University’s Hidemitsu Furukawa.

The soft and wet materials-engineering scientist is developing a 3D food printer dubbed the Laser Cook that heats and hardens liquid food poured into a mold. He envisions the equipment being used in convenience stores within the next 10 years to prepare custom-designed food for consumers. He is even in initial discussions with Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd., the owner of the 7-Eleven chain, about doing just that.

As Japan’s population ages, the technology could also prove useful for feeding elderly people with specific nutritional needs or providing softer food for those who have trouble chewing and swallowing, Furukawa and other developers have noted.

The sushi and wagyu projects are still works in progress, and there are obvious questions about how receptive consumers will be to food that may seem industrial or artificially engineered. But already, 3D food printers are being used at universities, restaurants, and food companies in Japan and around the world. Developers predict they will become fixtures in household kitchens within a generation.

“We’re trying to create a competitive food culture for the 21st century,” observed Ryosuke Sakaki, who founded Open Meals, a venture backed by ad agency Dentsu Inc., which is pursuing seven projects that involve 3D food printers, including some that essentially squeeze sushi and wagashi (Japanese confections) out a nozzle.

Sakaki remarked that getting the taste and texture right have been huge challenges, and he has enlisted the help of sushi chefs in this regard. But he acknowledges that the results will never measure up to the sushi we are used to. “We’ll never be able to match that,” he admitted, adding that the fish or seafood portion of printed sushi may be crispier and may be placed on top of regular pats of rice shaped by a machine. “We’ll need to think of it as a new kind of sushi experience,” he concluded.

Still, Sakaki has high hopes. By year-end, Open Meals plans to hold an event at which printed sushi and wagashi can be eaten and the technology demonstrated. If it is well received, he hopes to open a restaurant serving the food in the not-too-distant future. The name? Sushi Singularity.

Mini Food Factories

These Japanese ventures aim to join a number of startups from Europe, the United States, and China that have taken the lead in this nascent business.

Food printers, which emerged 10–12 years ago, work in a variety of ways. The dispensing function operates like that of 3D printers with which we may be most accustomed. But, whereas the latter create plastic shapes, the function here causes capsules of paste-like or liquid food to be squeezed through a nozzle to produce a three-dimensional shape that can be eaten or baked. The method lends itself to creating cookies, cakes, chocolates, and other confection. Some dessert shops have already started to display them.

But many machines can also handle mashed vegetables and even minced meat. The Foodini, a 3D food printer designed by Barcelona-based Natural Machines, comes equipped with capsules that users can fill with almost any sort of food, as long as it’s relatively soft.

The technology is not as foreign or far-out as it might sound, Chief Executive Officer Emilio Sepulveda told The ACCJ Journal. And it is already widely used in food processing plants. “These printers use the same processes and same technology that major food brands use to create pasta or meat patties,” he explained. “It’s basically 3D printing, but no one calls it that.”

Tackling Food Waste

The Laser Cook printer being developed by Yamagata University’s Furukawa operates differently. It combines water with dehydrated, powdered food, which is poured into a vessel and then zapped with a laser to cook or harden it.

In this way, 3D printers can help reduce food waste, Furukawa and others have said. Instead of discarding food that isn’t sold at the supermarket—or the “ugly” vegetables that don’t even get to the store, because they’re not the ideal shape—it can be turned into powder and saved for future use. “If we think differently … and convert food into powder, it becomes an on-demand item and there’s little waste,” Furukawa explained.

There’s also potential here for use in space, he added. Transporting lightweight powder is easy. It doesn’t require refrigeration and it can last several years. “So, when we go to Mars—a journey that could take two or three years—this kind of food could be used. You can make it just by adding water.”

The technology is something the Japanese government is getting behind as well. One goal of the Cabinet Office’s Moonshot Program is to reduce food waste, and some developers, including Furukawa, are receiving government research funding.

Personalized Nutrition

Another benefit, scientists and developers say, is that ingredients can be customized to meet individual nutritional needs. That might include vitamins and other supplements.

It could be particularly helpful, in Japan and other developed nations, for the growing ranks of elderly people, who may not get enough nutrition as their stomachs and appetites shrink. Producing softer food can also help elderly people who have dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, a common problem for those with Parkinson’s disease. “With this technology, you can make dense nutrition,” Furukawa explained.

Athletes and soldiers could also benefit from specially designed food. Perhaps during disasters, the technology could also be used to feed people who lack provisions, developers say.

“The opportunity and potential to use this in hospital settings, in homes for the elderly, where consumers need very specific nutrients, and where nutrients must be provided at specific times—that’s a huge market,” said Jennifer Perez, a venture capitalist at the $20 million Future Food Fund, established by online food delivery service Oisix ra daichi Inc., which invests in food-technology ventures.

So far, the fund hasn’t invested in any 3D food printing companies, but Perez sees great potential. “This technology is a dream of the future, but it’s starting to happen right now,” she added.

Synthetic Wagyu

Japan is on the cutting edge in one particular area: developing “structured” synthetic meat that contains ripples of fat, blood, and sinew, just like the steaks we might buy at the supermarket.

While food printers have been able to process fresh and synthetic ground meat for some time, Osaka University bioengineer Michiya Matsusaki is spearheading research and working with Shimadzu Corporation to develop chunks of synthetic, or cultured, wagyu, Japan’s famous marbled beef.

The complicated process involves injecting stem cells from fresh meat into a gelatinous bath. The cells are then exposed to stimulating chemicals to differentiate them. Some become tiny muscle fibers just 500-microns wide, while others become tissue, such as fat and blood vessels.

The muscle fibers are then assembled to create tiny pieces of meat—72 strands, for example, create a tidbit just 5 millimeters x 5 millimeters x 1.5 centimeters. Matsusaki has not been able to do a taste test yet, because he hasn’t received clearance from the university’s ethics committee. But his team aims to complete the project for demonstration at World Expo 2025 in Osaka, where they hope to offer visitors tiny edible pieces of such printed wagyu.

Matsusaki said he’s received inquiries about his research from a number of companies around the world. “We’re getting lots of interest from Singapore, Dubai, and the United States,” he shared. “Companies that make synthetic meat don’t have the technique to make this shape.”

Key reasons for the project include concern about the environment and the possibility that the world will face a shortage of meat in the future, making it difficult to feed the growing population, Matsusaki explained. Increasing the number of cattle—and expanding grazing land to meet their needs—would lead to the destruction of more forests. And cows produce a lot of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The equipment being developed with Shimadzu would allow consumers to manipulate the percentage of fat they want in their meat. “If you had one of these machines in your home, you could decide on the fat content and shape you wanted,” he observed. “Press a button and it would be done the next day. That’s the kind of future we’re trying to create.”

Very Analog

But how does such food taste, and will consumers go for it? Japanese are quite open-minded about robots and other applications of technology, but when it comes to food they have very high standards for quality, texture, taste, and freshness.

Tetsuya Nojiri, CEO of Oishii kenko Inc.—creator of the app that goes by the same name and who is not involved in 3D printer development—said he can see some positives in the technology, particularly for addressing nutritional needs of the elderly. However, he believes it won’t appeal to most Japanese consumers, and that it would take many years to be accepted. “Most people want food that is natural, safe, and tasty,” he stated. “That’s very analog, not digital.”

Aiming to contribute to health and healthcare issues through dietary management is the Oishii kenko app, which won the Empowering Patients Award and People’s Choice Award at last year’s American Chamber of Commerce in Japan Healthcare x Digital competition. The app’s name means “tasty health” and it provides recommendations for nutritionally balanced, delicious meals using artificial intelligence and Big Data.

Nojiri suggested that, if the equipment to make 3D printed foods is fun and easy to use, he can see some consumers using it to make niche products such as chocolates and other confections. He can also see it being put to work in larger-scale settings, such as hospitals and universities. “These printers have potential, but it’s hard to imagine that they would be used to prepare food for the ordinary person,” he added.

Perez of the Future Food Fund feels that more time and research is needed to gauge consumer receptivity. “Consumers are curious but, ultimately, it comes down to: Is the product going to taste good?”

Taste and texture are indeed very difficult, if not impossible, to replicate on a food printer. Chocolate and baked goods are easier on that score, but synthetic meat—or hybrid meat mixed with soy or other plant products—has generally proved disappointing. “It doesn’t really taste like meat yet, so that’s a problem,” Matsusaki remarked.

Price, Speed, Scalability

The 3D printers currently being used have built-in limitations on what they can produce, Sakaki explained. “Food made with certain ingredients will harden and taste good, but [made with] others will not. There are also limitations on how you can design the food to come out. And it takes quite a while to make each piece, so that raises the price.”

Yes, as with any new technology, price is an issue. Natural Machines’ Foodini sells for about ¥800,000 at current exchange rates ($6,000), although the company also offers less expensive subscription plans for set periods of time. The Laser Cook being developed by Furukawa costs roughly ¥1 million (about $7,500). Other machines being developed in Japan, such as the wagyu and sushi printers, do not yet have price tags.

Speed and scalability are other problems, according to Perez. Printing a simple round cake can take seven to 15 minutes, and making just one more complex structure can take 45 minutes to an hour. “When you compare that to what you can do on the standard factory line, it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she said. “When you look at the logistics, it doesn’t quite work yet.”

On the flip side, once you have a successful product, it’s highly reproducible, Perez pointed out. And that data could be shared with other machines to create the same product on another continent—or in outer space.

Suraj Gujar, principal analyst for disruptive technologies at Meticulous Research in Pune, India, sees 3D printers as remaining a relatively niche product used by bakeries, caterers, hotels, and restaurants—but not the wider public.

The equipment is far too expensive, hefty, and slow to catch on among ordinary consumers, at least for the foreseeable future, he offered. Also, most printers don’t have a cooking feature, so that involves another step, adding more time and work. And some can be tricky to operate, he added.

“The consumer has to be tech savvy, because if you want to print food, it means you have to give a command to a machine. And if you want a customized design, then you have to program that into the computer,” Gujar explained. “If it’s for a cake, I would be happy to have it. But if it’s for daily food, I’m skeptical.”

To counter negative impressions that printers generate “plastic food,” Natural Machines’ Sepulveda said that, most often, fresh ingredients are used with the Foodini, several dozen of which are already being put to work in Japan at food companies, universities, hospitals and restaurants.

To win the trust of consumers in Japan, it’s important to work with established food brands, Sepulveda noted. Natural Machines is working with Hankyu and Dentsu. “Japanese corporates are super open and looking for partnerships that can bring them this extra value that they have not been able to develop on their own,” he added.

And demand in the region is on the rise: Asia has overtaken North America as the Foodini’s top market.

Despite the obstacles, developers say growing consumer awareness and concern about environmental, health, and sustainability issues are making them more receptive to this new technology. “Sustainability is getting more attention,” said Open Meals’s Sakaki, “including concerns about fish catch and resource use. 3D printing is one way to address that, so I think people will be receptive.”

State of Mind

How artificial intelligence is helping identify mental health concerns for better treatment

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For millions of people around the world who were already struggling with mental health issues, the past two-and-a-half years of the coronavirus pandemic have been a further trial. Isolation, a sudden shortage of opportunities to interact with friends or family in person, additional stresses in the workplace or the home, new financial worries, and difficulty in accessing appropriate mental healthcare have taken their toll, experts in the field told The ACCJ Journal.

However, in the battle against mental health complaints, this time of adversity has also served to fast-track development and adoption of a new tool: artificial intelligence (AI). While the technology may be relatively new to the sector, the potential is huge, according to companies that are applying it to assist physicians with diagnosis and treatment.

A Tool for Our Time

AI has come a very long way since the first chatbots appeared back in the 1990s, and early mental health monitoring apps became available, explained Vickie Skorji, Lifeline services director at the Tokyo-based TELL Lifeline and counseling service. And it is urgently needed, she added.

“When we have something such as Covid-19 come along on a global scale, there is inevitably a sharp increase in anxiety, stress, and depression. The mental healthcare systems that were in place were simply flooded,” she said.

“A lot of companies were already playing around in the area of AI and mental healthcare, but the pandemic has really pushed these opportunities to the forefront,” she explained. “If, for example, a physician is not able to meet a client in person, there are now ways to get around that, and there has been an explosion in those options.”

Not every purported tool is effective, she cautions, and there are going to be questions around client confidentiality and keeping data current. The clinician must also become sufficiently adept at interpreting a client’s genuine state of mind, which might be different from the feelings that are communicated through the technology. On the whole, however, Skorji sees AI as an extremely useful weapon in the clinician’s armory.

Voice Matters

One of the most innovative solutions has recently been launched by Kintsugi, a collaboration between Grace Chang and Rima Seiilova-Olson, engineers who met at the 2019 OpenAI Hackathon in San Francisco. In just a couple of years, the company has gone from a startup to being named in the Forbes list of North America’s top 50 AI companies.

Kintsugi has developed an application programming interface called Kintsugi Voice which can be integrated into clinical call centers, telehealth platforms, and remote patient monitoring applications. It enables a provider who is not a mental health expert to support someone whose speech indicates they may require assistance.

Instead of using natural language processing (NLP), Kintsugi’s unique machine learning models focus on signals from voice biomarkers that are indicative of symptoms of clinical depression and anxiety. Producing speech involves the coordination of various cognitive and motor processes, which can be used to provide insight into the state of a person’s physical and mental health.

In the view of Prentice Tom, chief medical officer of the Berkeley, California-based company, passive signals derived from voice biomarkers in clinical calls can greatly improve speed to triage, enhance behavioral health metadata capture, and benefit the patient.

“Real-time data that augments the clinician’s ability to improve care—and that can be easily embedded in current clinical workflows, such as Kintsugi’s voice biomarker tool—is a critical component necessary for us to move to a more efficient, quality-driven, value-based healthcare system,” he explained. The technology is already in use in the United States, and Japan is on the waiting list for expansion in the near future.

Chang, the company’s chief executive officer, is confident that they are just scratching the surface of what is possible with AI, with one estimate suggesting that AI could help reduce the time between the appearance of initial symptoms and intervention by as much as 10 years.

“Our work in voice biomarkers to detect signs of clinical depression and anxiety from short clips of speech is just the beginning,” she said. “Our team is looking forward to a future where we can look back and say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe there was a time when we couldn’t get people access to mental healthcare and deliver help to people at their time of need.’

“My dream and goal as the CEO of Kintsugi is that we can create opportunities for everyone to access mental health in an equitable way that is both timely and transformational,” she added.

The Power of Data

Maria Liakata, a professor of NLP at Queen Mary University of London, is also the joint lead on NLP and data science for mental health groups at the UK’s Alan Turing Institute. She has studied the use and effectiveness of AI in communicating with the public during a pandemic.

Liakata’s own work has focused on developing NLP methods to automatically capture changes in individuals’ mood and cognition over time, as manifested through their language and other digital content. This information can be used to construct new monitoring tools for clinicians and individuals.

But, she said, a couple of other projects have caught her eye.

One is Ieso Digital Health, a UK-based company that offers online cognitive behavioral therapy for the National Health Service, utilizing NLP technology to analyze sessions and provide data to physicians. And last October, US-based mental and behavioral health company SonderMind Inc. acquired Qntfy, which builds tools powered by AI and machine learning that analyze online behavioral data to help people find the most appropriate mental health treatment.

“There has definitely been a boom over the past few years in terms of the development of AI solutions for mental health,” Liakata said. “The availability of large fora in the past 10 years where individuals share experiences about mental health-related issues has certainly helped in this respect. The first work that came to my attention and sparked my interest in this domain was a paper in 2011 by the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. It was about constructing a corpus of suicide notes for use in training machine learning models.”

Yet, as is the case during the early stages of any technology being implemented, there are issues that need to be ironed out.

“One big hurdle is the availability of good quality data, especially data over time,” she continued. “Such datasets are hard to collect and annotate. Another hurdle is the personalization of AI models and transferring across domains. What works well, let’s say, for identifying a low mood for one person may not work as well for other people. And there is also the challenge of moving across different domains and platforms, such as Reddit versus Twitter.

“I think there is also some reluctance on the part of clinicians to adopt solutions, and this is why it is very important that AI solutions are created in consultation with clinical experts.”

Over the longer term, however, the outlook is positive, and Liakata anticipates the deployment of AI-based tools to help with the early diagnosis of a range of mental health and neurological conditions, including depression, schizophrenia, and dementia. These tools would also be able to justify and provide evidence for their diagnosis, she suggested.

To Assist, Not Replace

Elsewhere, AI tools will be deployed to monitor the progression of mental health conditions, summarize these with appropriate evidence, and suggest interventions likely to be of benefit. These would be used by both individuals, to self-manage their conditions, and clinicians.

Despite all the potential positives, Skorji emphasizes that AI needs to be applied in conjunction with in-person treatment for mental health complaints, rather than as a replacement.

“The biggest problem we are seeing around the world at the moment is loneliness,” she said. “Technology is useful, but it does not give people access to people. How we deal with problems, what the causes of our stress are, how can we have healthy relationships with other people—we are not going to get that from AI. We need to be there as well.”

From Disaster to Tech Hub

The bold ambitions of Japan’s Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework

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Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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For his first-ever trip to Japan, in 2011, Warren Buffett chose to visit Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture. What attracted the world’s most celebrated investor to a former mining community of some 300,000 residents far away from the bright lights of Tokyo? The Sage of Omaha came in person to show his support for Tungaloy Corporation, a leading maker of cutting tools. Tungaloy also happens to be owned and operated by a company led by Buffett. Just a few months after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, devastated much of the surrounding region, Buffett stood in front of Tungaloy’s Iwaki headquarters holding a sign that read, “Never give up, Fukushima!” The act underscored his commitment to the company, its employees, and the community that hosts them.

Tungaloy President Satoshi Kinoshita explained: “Companies are only as good as their people. The workers here in Iwaki City are bright, diligent, and ambitious. They are filled with creative ideas. This wealth of local talent on our doorstep—combined with very supportive local communities and government agencies—makes the case for investing in Fukushima so compelling.”

Fukushima Reimagined

Iwaki City is just one of a string of towns and cities in the Hamadori area, Fukushima Prefecture’s coastal region facing the Pacific Ocean which was hardest hit by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters. Soon after the catastrophe, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) began coordinating a wide range of efforts to revitalize this former disaster zone. METI’s revitalization initiatives were raised to a new level with the launch of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework in May 2017. Under the framework, the ministry is attracting innovators in six core sectors through financial and other types of aid. The core sectors include:

• Decommissioning
• Robotics and drones
• Energy, environment, and recycling
• Agroforestry and fisheries
• Medical care
• Aerospace

Future Tech Hub

In the 11 years since the earthquake, recovery has focused on restoring businesses to their original locations in Fukushima through business and livelihood restoration efforts; but that doesn’t provide a vision of Fukushima’s future. The Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework aims for “creative reconstruction” by developing new industries in the prefecture’s coastal region.

“As we attract outside companies, we also want locals to restart their businesses. True creative reconstruction is only realized once local companies successfully mesh with new partners and drive the creative cycle,” explained Masami Miyashita, director of METI’s Fukushima New Industries and Employment Promotion Office.

A Leg Up for Robotics

One of the cutting-edge research and development facilities is the Fukushima Robot Test Field. It offers experimental equipment and development facilities such as tunnels, bridges, and runways for aircraft to test the performance of robots for infrastructure inspection and communication towers for drones.

Sou Yanbe, growth manager of the venture capital Real Tech Fund, explained: “Test environments that can assess the durability of devices are indispensable for the commercial rollout of hardware such as robots and drones. But most startups can’t afford to own and operate the facilities needed to conduct these tests. Robotics startups aiming for mass production should first consider setting up a base in the Hamadori area of Fukushima.”

Big Hydrogen Plants

Take for example the small community of Namie, which has been reimagined as Hydrogen Town Namie and houses one of the world’s largest-capacity hydrogen plants: Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field. Sucking up an enormous amount of energy generated by solar panels, the field applies this solar energy to produce enough hydrogen fuel daily to power about 150 households or to fully charge 560 fuel-cell vehicles.

In response to the national government’s 2050 Carbon Neutral Declaration, which is expected to encourage even further the introduction of renewable energy in Japan, Namie has declared itself a zero-carbon city, aiming to achieve virtually no carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. While this will promote the generation and use of renewable energy, the key to achieving their 2050 goal is found in the “create local, use local” strategy for clean Namie hydrogen produced at the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field.

Fixed-wing drones will scan disaster-struck areas.

Drones to the Disaster Response

Meanwhile, the startup Terra Labo is addressing the other side of the coin: disaster preparedness. Investing just over $2 million to build a research, development, and manufacturing hub next to Fukushima Robot Test Field, Terra Labo Chief Executive Officer Takahide Matsuura aims to develop and commercialize long-range, unmanned drones by the end of 2023.

Matsuura envisions a disaster management system where fixed-wing drones capable of long-distance flight share images and 3D models generated from aerial surveying with a special analysis team, which then passes them on to government bodies.

“No other facility is so well equipped with not only an airfield and testing facilities, but also ancillary facilities,” Matsuura said, noting how critical the facilities are to his vision. “This makes it ideal for a development-centered company. It must not have been easy to secure the site.”

Engaging Education

But it’s not all billionaires, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. The next generation of Fukushima residents is just as involved. In the classroom of a local school, children’s eyes light up when one palm-sized robot bows. The robot attracting their attention is the Aruku Mechatro WeGo, designed to help children learn programming. Classes such as these are held regularly in Fukushima for elementary and middle school students with the hopes that some will grow up to be the innovators of the future. And perhaps, in the years to come, one of Buffett’s successors will visit Fukushima and be inspired by local creativity and entrepreneurship to invest more in the vibrant Fukushima of the future.

Children interact with the Aruku Mechatro WeGo robot.

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The Case of the Missing Startups

Why biotechs find it hard to get going in Japan

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University and government venture funds play a much larger role in Japan than they do in Western countries. Yet we see fewer biotechnology startups here compared with, say, the United States, which is home to eight of the top 10 highest-funded ventures. Why?

I explored this with Dr. Hiroaki Suga, co-founder of biotech company PeptiDream Inc., in a recent episode of my podcast Disrupting Japan. A professor at the University of Tokyo, Suga did his post-doctoral study under Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School. As an academic and a researcher, Suga knows well the dynamics at play in biotech development and application in Japan.

With PeptiDream, which has created a platform for the discovery of highly diverse, non-standard peptide libraries that can be developed into peptide-based therapeutics, Suga has taken a different approach to funding. And it has paid off.

Founded in 2006, PeptiDream is now worth more than $3 billion and collaborates with many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, including American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) members Eli Lilly Japan K.K., Bayer Yakuhin, Ltd., AstraZeneca K.K., and Novartis.

Less is More

What I learned from our discussion is that, in this situation, smaller investments may lead to better results.

“If you have $10 million, you will just burn through it,” Suga said, adding that less capital will keep you focused and get results that can lead to bigger things.

In PeptiDream’s seed round, it received $1 million from The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners Co., Ltd., a Japan-based seed- and early-stage deep-tech venture capital firm.

With limited funds, “You need to really develop technology that will allow you to collaborate with big pharmaceutical companies,” Suga explained. These companies set criteria, and don’t give you money immediately. “Once you reach [one set of] criteria, you can get money. Then you get to another stage and you get more money,” he said.

This approach carries less risk for pharmaceutical companies, and Suga sees little risk for PeptiDream, because he is confident that they can meet the criteria.

Obstacles

This unusual approach has worked well for PeptiDream, so why don’t we see more biotech startups succeeding this way in Japan?

Suga said there are several reasons.

“Venture capitalists are not investing in risky companies, and biopharmaceutical companies are high risk,” he explained. “If you are developing business software, after six months, you know if it isn’t working. But drug development is a long-term commitment.”

“The first is that venture capitalists are not investing in risky companies, and biopharmaceutical companies are high risk,” he explained. “If you are developing business software, after six months, you know if it isn’t working. But drug development is a long-term commitment. Venture capitalists have to wait, and they may not be able to do so. They may need to wait 10 years to realize the potential, but they are looking for five.”

“The second reason is that Japanese society prefers to go with what’s known,” he continued. In this case, it means that talent heads for the largest pharmaceutical companies, which are seen as stronger and a safe harbor. “For example, all my students go to big pharma. They don’t go to PeptiDream.”

But this isn’t so much a case of risk aversion—often cited as an obstacle to success in Japan—as one of familiarity. Their parents know the names of the big players, but not of small ones such as PeptiDream.

Large Japanese companies tend to have little interest in helping smaller ones. This chasm is one that the ACCJ is attempting to bridge with its Healthcare x Digital initiative, which completed its second annual competition in November.

Spin-off vs. Startup

The third obstacle that Suga cited is the fact that many startups in Japan are research units that have been spun off from large companies that chose to leave Japan. “They had a very good team here, so they decided to spin off. They already have a background from big pharma and continue doing [what they were doing],” he explained. “That means that they aren’t hugely different from the big companies.”

In the end, Suga said that the biggest change that needs to take place for Japan to become more fertile ground for biotech startups must be made at the university level.

“Professors really need to work hard to get technology to be very practical, to be very robust. You really have to put forth effort to get to the end,” he said. “Then, the Japanese government needs to support this type of research. That’s very critical.”

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Innovation Destination

US-led platform to provide healthcare traceability and stability in Japan

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As a super-aging society with a population of more than 100 million, Japan has the potential to become a destination for healthcare innovation. Its citizens have easy and equal access to quality healthcare services, with pharmaceuticals and medical devices playing important roles in improving quality of life.

But there are technological obstacles to overcome. The US medical device industry is leading the effort to develop a data platform in Japan which will enable traceability in healthcare. The platform will allow the collection, storage, and sharing of information among stakeholders (e.g., manufactures, vendors, and hospitals). It will become a critical tool for improving the quality and efficiency of Japan’s healthcare system and will help ensure a stable supply of medical goods for healthcare providers.

Leveraging Tech

High-speed internet is nearly ubiquitous across Japan, but its benefit to healthcare is hampered by rules, systems, and business practices put in place before the internet era. Healthcare data is stored in a way that makes it difficult to share among stakeholders. This issue became obvious as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and the country found it difficult to:

• Track medical supplies
• Monitor public health
• Analyze collected data

Medical devices in Japan now carry a unique device identifier and all products are labeled with a GS1-128 bar code that contains a Global Trade Item Number. Some products, such as those related to orthopedics, are even tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) information so that every item can be tracked, traced, and reported on.

Currently, RFID is only used to improve productivity within an organization. But as more companies introduce RFID technologies, to minimize confusion and inconvenience, the industry has agreed to:

• Standardize the RFID format
• Develop a platform to store and share data

The platform will enable manufactures to offer products that allow stakeholders to use all associated information to improve the quality and productivity of the healthcare system and to stabilize the supply of medical products. Expected to be available in mid-2022, the platform is being developed under the Smart Logistics Service portion of the Japanese government’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program.

Government Support

The US medical device industry is part of a study group supported by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), which provides grants to help enable traceability of drugs and medical devices to improve safety and efficiency in hospitals. The goal of this study group is to set the basic feature requirements for electronic health-record systems used in hospitals. Guiding documents help hospitals and vendors introduce and use bar codes and RFID technology. With these two systems, traceability in the Japanese healthcare system can be dramatically improved.

Traceability in healthcare enables us to see the movement of prescription drugs and medical devices through the supply chain. We can trace the history of the transfers and locations of a product, starting from the point of manufacture. We can also look ahead to see the intended route of the product to the point of care. It also helps provide greater oversight of medical device performance for effective post-market surveillance in the event of adverse event reports or product recall alerts.

With increased traceability and productivity along the whole supply chain, the quality and efficiency of healthcare services provided in Japan will improve, and a stable supply of medical goods will be guaranteed. Data can also be collected automatically, and shared among stakeholders for analysis that will lead to improvements in care.

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Hidden Treasure

Can women overcome obstacles to fill Japan’s tech gap?

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The Japanese government calls it a “digital cliff”—a projected shortfall of 450,000 engineers, programmers, and other tech workers needed by 2030 to undertake the country’s digital transformation.

Harnessing the largely untapped potential of Japanese women—who are drastically underrepresented in science, engineering, and computer programming jobs and college degrees—could help narrow that gap.

“Authorities realize they face a big labor shortage, and some people talk about opening up immigration. But, already, we have a huge resource: Japan’s hidden treasure is the power of women,” said Annie Chang, vice-chair of the ACCJ Independent Business Committee and head of IT recruiting company AC Global Solutions Ltd. In 2013, Chang co-founded Women in Technology Japan, a group dedicated to boosting female participation in the tech industry through workshops and mentorships.

And yet women face a host of obstacles—cultural, educational, corporate, and familial—that keep them from playing bigger roles in technology. As a result, Japan has a large digital gender gap, with some of the lowest shares globally of women in tech jobs and college programs, even compared with many developing Asian nations.

According to UNESCO data, just 14 percent of university graduates with engineering degrees in Japan are women. Compare this with 20.4 percent in the United States, 24.5 percent in the Philippines, and 30.8 percent in India. Among engineering researchers, Japanese women account for just 5.6 percent. That’s left a dearth of female role models to inspire girls about their futures.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Asumi Saito, 30, who co-founded Waffle, a non-profit in Japan that works to support teenage girls interested in science and technology at a critical juncture in their lives, when they must choose between pursuing science or humanities tracks in high school.

“I’m hopeful about the younger generation,” said Saito, who believes that bringing more women into technology will benefit the broader economy and society. “It will lead to greater diversity in innovations and, likely, more humane applications of technology in areas such as health and childcare.”

Allowing women to play a bigger role in the tech industry would “lead to so many more business opportunities,” said Yan Fan, a software programmer who previously worked in Silicon Valley and, in 2017, co-founded coding academy Code Chrysalis, which runs intensive 12-week programming boot camps in Japan. About a quarter of its students are women. Fan and her academy were featured in the April 2019 issue of The ACCJ Journal.

“The message I want Japanese women to have is: ‘You are 50 percent of one of the most powerful economies in the world. You are a significant part of the workplace,’” Fan explained.

And that could lift Japan on the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, where the country languishes at 28th globally and seventh in Asia, behind Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and South Korea.

Systemic Change

But Japan’s digital transformation could leave many of its women behind. Those at home with children, or who are middle-aged, have little chance to learn new in-demand skills, such as programming, machine learning engineering, and data science.

That’s a global concern: as automation takes over low-skilled jobs around the world, women stand to lose more than men, the 2021 UNESCO Science Report warns.

Fan isn’t confident that Japanese society can shed the constraints and cultural assumptions that impede women. She points to the oft-heard microaggression, “Even a housewife can do this,” as an example of the mindset that grips Japan. “When you hear those kinds of things day after day, it becomes ingrained in you.”

Systemic change is needed, Fan said. “The onus seems to fall mostly on women. There’s little talk about all the other changes that need to happen for women to actually make the space in their lives to learn new skills. So, I think women will fall further behind as the country digitizes.”

Still, Fan is optimistic about Japan’s potential—and the wider impact it can have. “If we can elevate women in this society, we can create reverberations throughout the world just due to the sheer size and power of Japan’s culture and its economy.”

Mindset Change

There are signs of modest progress. Compared with 20 years ago, there’s greater awareness of diversity, and companies are taking steps to hire and promote more women. That’s thanks partly to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s promotion of Womenomics, a term he apparently borrowed from Kathy Matsui, the former Goldman Sachs Japan vice-chair who, earlier this year, co-founded MPower Partners, Japan’s first venture capital fund focused on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). “Just the fact that diversity is part of the vernacular is a huge step forward,” Matsui said.

But, more importantly, there’s been a mindset change at some corporations. Leaders have realized that giving women bigger roles in projects and leadership isn’t just a human rights and equality issue, but a driver of economic growth, she added.

“If you don’t think diversity is a competitive and growth imperative, it really isn’t going to get any traction,” she said. “But if you think it is a weapon for growth and a competitive advantage, and you filter that down through your organization, you can get buy-in. Then you can start to change how you recruit, how you evaluate, how you promote. That’s the only way you’re going to get women into those leadership positions.”

One step in this direction is the appointment of Yoko Ishikura, professor emeritus of Hitotsubashi University, to be the No. 2 official in charge of Japan’s new Digital Agency.

The number of women seeking and finding jobs in the tech industry is slowly growing. Of the 27,300 candidates placed by tech recruiting company Wahl + Case since 2014, the portion who are women has risen from 27 percent to 38 percent, explained founder Casey Wahl. However, women make up 14 percent in highly technical positions such as software coding, he said; more go into marketing and product design.

Women who do land tech jobs find they pay better than work in many other industries. The average annual salary for candidates recently placed by Wahl + Case has been about ¥9 million ($80,000).

Compared with 20 years ago, Wahl said he sees major changes in the role of women in the workplace. “There’s a big trend going on, a generational time shift,” he noted. “The people in their thirties and forties—when they get into power, then things will change even more.”

The combination of soaring demand for tech jobs and greater commitment to diversity presents women with an opening—provided they have the right skills. “Women have a great opportunity now,” Chang said. “But the pipeline is so small. How do you increase this from the grassroots level?”

Home Front

Parents and teachers have the biggest responsibility in nurturing—or discouraging—girls’ interest in science, math, and computers, Chang, Matsui, and others said.

When Chang asks Japanese female engineers who had the biggest influence on their career choice, the frequent response is their fathers. Ironically, it is more often their mothers who tried to dissuade them, she explained. “The moms are generally stuck at home, so they don’t have much exposure to technology. They’re not very encouraging of daughters who are interested in science and don’t think the image is very good.” Some even worry about their daughter’s marriage prospects if they pursue an engineering career.

Even today, there is a persistent bias in Japan that girls aren’t particularly good at science and math. Parents and teachers may express such views, and girls pick up cues from anime and TV shows that tend to portray boys tinkering with robots or computers, but not usually girls.

Those images can influence girls’ self-image and confidence, said Miki Ito, 38, an aerospace engineer and general manager at Astroscale, which is engaged in removing space debris circling Earth. “There’s the idea that if you go study science at university, it’s full of men, or it’s really difficult,” she said.

Ito’s parents were surprised but supportive when, as a teen, she expressed a desire to study space. Her only model was Chiaki Mukai, Japan’s first female astronaut. In college and graduate school, most of her college classmates and all her teachers were men, but Ito said she didn’t encounter any discrimination.

“I actually think women are well-suited to programming. It involves setting up steps to carry out a plan, like going on a trip. Women are good at that kind of planning for their families,” Ito said. “As more women take these IT jobs, they will become role models for the younger girls, who will realize they can do those jobs.”

Digital Future

To prepare Japan’s youth for the digital future, the government now requires computer programming to be taught in elementary schools. At that age, boys and girls are equally enthused about technology, said Haruka Fujiwara, 34, who has been teaching and coordinating programming classes at her school in Tsukuba, located north of Tokyo in Ibaraki Prefecture.

“The kids love it. They naturally engage with each other and talk about projects together. Children who were kind of quiet or not very confident now brag about their projects,” Fujiwara said. “I haven’t seen any gender difference in enthusiasm or ability.”

To create projects, fifth and sixth graders use software and tools such as Microsoft Excel and Scratch, a coding language and community developed for children by the US-based non-profit Scratch Foundation. One of their projects measured the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, Fujiwara explained. Seventh graders at her school start learning the JavaScript programming language. “In the upcoming generation,” she said, “I think girls will be using computers just as confidently as boys.”

Until age 15, Japanese boys and girls perform equally well on international standardized math and science tests. But a gap develops once they enter high school and are required to choose between science and humanities tracks. More girls choose the latter, perhaps because science seems daunting or because they are encouraged to do so by their teachers or parents.

The gender gap widens further in college and graduate school, where engineering and tech programs are dominated by male students and teachers. In many countries, this leaky pipeline phenomenon is common: the higher the education level, the fewer the women. But in Japan’s case, the flow narrows to a trickle.

And working women are generally expected to quit once they bear children, removing their ideas and contributions from the marketplace. When women are at home, they have few opportunities to gain tech skills, and tend to settle for part-time, low-paying jobs such as supermarket cashiers—a position that is dwindling as checkout kiosks take over.

While more young mothers are returning to work after maternity leave, finding daycare can be difficult—especially if they have to work late. And working women are still generally expected to do most of the housework and child-rearing, as well as care for elderly parents or in-laws.

To flourish and advance in the workplace, women may need to think more about how to brand themselves—how they can use their unique gifts and strengths to be successful, said Nancy Ngou, an ACCJ governor and co-chair of the Human Resource Management Committee, who is also head of organizational change and diversity at accounting firm EY.

“They shouldn’t have to emulate the male personality,” Ngou said. “Maybe they’re better at networking or building trusting relationships with people. As a leader, those are very important qualities.”

Reframing the Narrative

At Waffle, Saito and her co-founder, Sayaka Tanaka, are trying to change the narrative about technology and gender.

They run one-day camps for girls in middle and high school that cover programming basics and offer career talks, as well as hands-on experiences that emphasize the problem-solving, community-building, and entrepreneurial aspects of technology. “We want to create a safe space where girls can talk about these things freely,” said Saito, 30, who holds a master’s degree in data analytics from the University of Arizona.

Earlier this year, Waffle supported 75 young women who participated in a Technovation Girls contest, in which teams developed and pitched apps to a panel of judges. Many of the apps were intensely practical. One provided advice on where to find vegan food, and another divvied up household chores among family members. Recently, they received a grant from Google to support their work.

Saito said she receives text messages from girls about the opposition they face at home. One said her father refused to pay for her university tuition if she was going to major in data science and told her instead to study medicine—considered a scientific field more suited to women. Another girl said her parents didn’t want her to study physics because they were afraid that she would never get married.

“A lot of these girls don’t have adults around them to listen to them seriously,” said Saito. “That’s a huge problem in Japan.”

Creative and Flexible

Coding academies have popped up across Japan, but enrollment is heavily weighted toward men. Most women simply don’t have the time, money, or inclination to attend.

Trying to make programming attractive to women, Hitomi Yamazaki in April co-founded Ms. Engineer, Japan’s first coding academy expressly for women. With female models and muted purple tones, the website emphasizes the flexibility that programming offers, including working from home. Even the startup’s name is meant to convey the idea that being a female engineer is cool.

“We wanted to avoid the geeky image and stress the creative monozukuri aspects of programming,” Yamazaki said, using a Japanese term meaning craftsmanship or making things. “We also emphasize that programming is well-suited to a woman’s work style—the freedom of working hours and location.”

Applicants to the first class want to change careers or achieve more in their jobs, Yamazaki said, and 70 percent of inquiries have come from women with children. The pandemic has helped both working women and stay-at-home moms realize that working from home is a realistic option, she said.

Ms. Engineer aims to produce graduates who can do full-stack programming, meaning they can design web applications as well as manage databases and servers. The course costs ¥1.42 million, or about $13,000.

Yamazaki has worked to promote her new business among social media influencers, including Yuri Sasagawa, a model, TV announcer, and new mother who recently attended Ms. Engineer’s kickoff event and tweeted enthusiastically about the future opportunities for female engineers.

Elevating Women

Companies embracing diversity have taken various approaches to narrow the digital gender gap. Some have set numerical targets and implemented steps to reach them, while others have focused on changing hiring and promotional practices.

ACCJ member company Hitachi Ltd. recognizes that the input of women is essential to address consumers’ needs, said Tomoko Soma, a manager at the company’s diversity and inclusion development center. “Our entire business is changing, and we are not trying to sell products as much as services that provide solutions to everyday problems,” she explained. “To do that, we need a variety of employees coming up with ideas.”

Hitachi, which has been implementing initiatives to support and elevate women for more than 20 years, recently reached two goals: the employment of 800 female managers, who account for 6.3 percent of all the company’s managers, and raising the portion of female senior executives to 10 percent.

By 2030, the company aims to raise the ratio of female senior executives to 30 percent through its long-term plans to identify and develop promising young employees and by absorbing talent through global acquisitions, Soma said.

In keeping with government guidelines, female Hitachi employees can take up to two years of maternity and childcare leave, then come back to the same job. If the women have a hard time finding daycare for their child, Hitachi will help them and can extend the leave for a third year. “In situations where there are no nursery vacancies, we don’t want women to quit their jobs just for that reason,” Soma said.

Changing Hiring Practices

Online marketplace Mercari, launched in 2013 and one of Japan’s most successful startups, decided not to set numerical targets for women because doing so might lead to mistaken notions that some women were hired just to meet a quota, said D&I Strategy Team Manager Hirona Hono. “People may feel that they have to reach the goal for the sake of reaching the goal, instead of addressing the fundamental problem behind why this is happening,” she said.

Instead, the company has changed its hiring practices by expanding the pool of candidates to include as many qualified women as possible through recruiting events, women’s coding groups, and other methods. It also has installed checks in the hiring process that might detect bias. Human resources staffers check the pass-through ratios of male and female candidates after each interview to see if there’s any significant disparity and discuss the results with division leaders, she said.

Hono also added a series of diversity questions to the company’s internal promotion recommendation forms, including asking the person filling it out if other candidates from different backgrounds had been considered. If they hadn’t been, she wants to know why. “These questions keep people accountable,” she said.

At EY, while female employees are out for maternity leave, the company offers them a tablet so that they can stay connected to their peers and do e-learning if they want to stay up to speed, Ngou said. The company also provides women returning after maternity leave with an independent coaching service to help them work out daycare, their schedule, and the career they want when they return.

For real change to occur, Ngou said, there must be genuine commitment by the top of the organization—usually a man—displayed in public and behind closed doors. “If the leader doesn’t take it seriously, isn’t active in it, and doesn’t hold his other male leaders accountable for advancing women, nothing’s going to happen.”

Once the top adopts a change, the middle managers can confidently carry out the policies throughout the company, Ngou explained. “The top is so important. Change happens middle-out in Japan. But without the top leader voicing it, nothing will happen.”

Not a Sense of Crisis

The Japanese government has come under fire for doing little to address the shortage of women studying and training for jobs in technology—especially since doing so would help the country meet its digital transformation goals. One suggestion mentioned by several people interviewed for this story was to offer scholarships for female students interested in studying engineering.

“There’s still not a sense of crisis,” said Dr. Jackie Steele, a Canadian political scientist who has lived in Japan for more than 20 years. “I think Japan is going to have to hit an even bigger wall economically before the political and economic elite will admit that there are systemic hierarchies rewarding masculinity, senior age, and ethnocultural purity. These biases must be consciously eliminated. This undermines Japan’s ability to attract diverse talent in a global market.”

To give middle and high school girls exposure to tech workplaces, the government’s Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office set up a program in 2015 that promotes events where students can interact with female engineers, including those at ACCJ member company Amazon Web Services Japan G.K., and visit computer labs or university campuses. In 2019, some 36,000 people participated.

To help boost the number of workers with digital skills, the Japanese government offers subsidies that cover 70 percent of the cost of pre-approved training courses in artificial intelligence, data science, and other topics that are offered by private cram schools, explained Takefumi Tanabe, a director at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. While these don’t target women in particular, Tanabe sees Japan’s digital transformation as an opportunity for women to join the IT workforce.

Husband of the Year

The growth of ESG investing, or funding companies that meet certain environmental, social, and governance standards, can bring investor or market pressure for change, said Matsui, whose MPower Partners runs such a fund. For example, these funds will focus on ESG considerations, such as board diversity, which remains a big challenge in Japan.

“Japan is one of the fastest-growing markets globally for ESG investing. Every asset owner is increasingly focused on how to ‘ESG-ify’ their assets,” Matsui said. So, in addition to examining company fundamentals, fund managers are asking questions about the company’s carbon footprint, as well as its supply chain resilience, child labor policies, employee well-being, and the diversity of the workforce. “To me, the ESG movement is going to be a huge force for change,” she added.

A critical, but almost entirely overlooked, step is to educate and support Japanese men about their changing roles in society—and to celebrate those who are supportive husbands, said Wahl. There are plenty of seminars on what it means to be a working mother, but virtually none on what it means to be a working father. Many men assume that their main role is to work hard and provide for their families financially, although that view is changing among younger men.

“There should be a Husband of the Year award,” said Wahl. “He should get a prize and all kinds of recognition as his wife gives the speech about how she is successful because of what he did. And this has to be seen as cool.”

And if the government is going to offer women scholarships in technology, then it should also offer scholarships for men in caregiving, said Steele. “We need to work on both sides of the equation,” she added. “Men also face gender-based harassment if they stray from the corporate-warrior masculinity model.”

Matsui is encouraged by the differences she sees among the young men with whom she interacts. “They don’t necessarily want to work like their fathers and grandfathers, they don’t want to be slaves to their employers. They want to spend more time with their families. So, their values are more aligned with what many women have been striving for.”

That bodes well for the future. “The younger generation wants a world that is more equal. They want their spouses or partners to maximize their own potential,” Matsui added. “They’re still young, so they’re not necessarily in decision-making roles. But it’s only a matter of time before we see this generation leading Japan, and that makes me optimistic.”

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RTO Diplomacy

New embassy role focuses on technology leadership and collaboration

As the pace of digitalization quickens and technology plays an increasingly important role in our lives, maintaining global leadership in science, technology, and innovation is critical. To do so, the United States Foreign Service has created a new position—regional technology officer (RTO)—which will focus on enabling the United States to maintain its leadership through transnational approaches to technology policy and development initiatives.

RTOs will focus on:

• Promoting US leadership in technology
• Ensuring that technology ecosystems support democratic values
• Securing US economic assets
• Enhancing US competitiveness with strategic competitors

The RTO program will place foreign service officers (FSOs) at key global innovation hubs, where they can engage with the local technology community, promote regional cooperation and public outreach, and energize global technology hubs to accomplish US policy objectives.

This year, the US Department of State is deploying three RTOs. Matt Chessen (RTO Tokyo) and Jim Cerven (RTO Sydney) have arrived at their posts, and Charlette Betts is due to begin her RTO role in São Paulo, Brazil, in November. There are plans to deploy three more RTOs in 2022, with additional officers rolling out in the coming years.

To learn more about the RTO role, The ACCJ Journal spoke with Chessen about the overall goals as well as his mission in Japan.

How does an RTO in a diplomatic capacity differ from one in a corporate capacity?
This is a great question, as there are some similarities and analogues, but also important differences in our work.

One interesting observation from the diplomatic perspective is how we’re increasingly seeing corporate representatives playing a more proactive role in areas that traditionally were the domain of governments, such as the creation of normative value frameworks for particular areas of technology.

I was recently introduced to the Business Software Alliance’s Framework to Build Trust in AI. I see this kind of work as a positive evolution in the concept of corporate responsibility, where businesses recognize that there are risks inherent in new tools and are proactively taking steps to mitigate those risks.

The US government welcomes the participation of the private sector, encouraging it to play a strong role in the development and adoption of principles and norms for technologies. In fact, governments can’t and shouldn’t develop these frameworks without working hand in hand with the private sector and other stakeholder groups.

RTOs will focus on some of the same topic areas as their corporate counterparts, such as promoting an environment conducive to US business. RTOs have an outreach role which is analogous to private-sector public relations. This could involve working with our public diplomacy colleagues to enhance messaging around technology issues, or speaking on behalf of the US government. Because RTOs have deeper expertise in technology policy, they will serve as panelists and speakers at regional events, both governmental and non-governmental.

There are also some differences between RTOs and our corporate counterparts. We are focused on a broader range of critical and emerging technologies than are most private-sector representatives. Even within the technology sphere, we are generalists compared with our private-sector colleagues. RTOs have an internal capacity-building role in which we are tasked with raising the level of technology awareness and expertise among our diplomats in the region. We also have a strategic foresight function, where we’re expected to analyze emerging-technology markets and report on trends that generate opportunities and risks for economic and national security.

Why has the US government created this role?
The decision to establish the RTO positions was well supported by evidence from outside and inside government. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine first proposed the idea of regional technology diplomats in their 2015 report Diplomacy for the 21st Century: Embedding a Culture of Science and Technology Throughout the Department of State. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence made similar recommendations in their final report, where they recommend that the Department of State “establish a cadre of dedicated technology officers at US embassies and consulates to strengthen diplomatic advocacy, improve technology scouting, and inform policy and foreign assistance choices.”

Concurrent with these analyses, the Department of State noted four trends that made the case for RTOs.

First, as we’ve seen with 5G communications technologies and trusted infrastructure, technology issues are closely connected with many US core geopolitical interests.

Second, technology issues—such as semiconductor supply chains—are increasingly transnational in nature.

Third, there is a proliferation of international forums where technology issues are discussed, and we need officers with deeper expertise and focus on technology issues who can represent the United States in these forums.

And fourth, there is a recognition that, to maintain global leadership in technology, we have to build networks of regional partners that include the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and academia—in addition to governments.

Most of our FSOs are generalists who could be issuing visas in one assignment and coordinating climate policy in their next. The RTO initiative is a means of placing greater focus on technology issues and has a side benefit of cultivating a cadre of FSOs with deeper technological knowledge.

How will you liaise with the Japanese government?
In addition to their regional responsibilities, each RTO has a bilateral portfolio focused on their host country. For myself, I’ll be focusing on building additional cooperation with Japan on artificial intelligence (AI) and enhancing our partnership on standards for emerging technologies. I will also be focusing on how we can partner with Japan on broader regional technological issues such as regional data governance or promoting trusted infrastructure in ASEAN member states.

Will you be supporting Japan’s digitalization efforts?
I wouldn’t want to give the impression that the RTO becomes the focal point for all bilateral technology issues. We have officers that cover everything from digital economy issues to emerging energy technologies to fintech. We also have a large team here at the embassy focused on digitalization, both in the Trade and Economic Policy Unit and the Foreign Commercial Service Office. The RTO will serve to support their efforts.

Somewhat related, one of my goals is to improve collaboration between the United States and Japan on basic research in AI. Japan has tremendous capabilities in hardware and robotics, while the United States is strong in software and data. Enhancing our basic research cooperation will allow us to capitalize on each other’s strengths.

What are the biggest technological threats and challenges facing the United States and Japan?
I believe that the United States and Japan must work together, and with other democratic partners, to ensure we remain the global leaders in technology, and that technological ecosystems reflect our shared values. We are facing a new geotechnological environment, where the People’s Republic of China aspires to lead the world in technology and is using technology to undermine democratic values, the rule of law, and human rights. Ensuring US and Japanese leadership will require enhanced cooperation across the technology spectrum, from research and development to principles and governance.

We also need to make certain that markets are fair and that our economic assets are protected. The key will be enhancing our shared economic security without veering into policies that become protectionist or, worse, undermine the very industries we are trying to cultivate. We believe we can strike this balance and we look forward to working with Japan and other regional partners—especially our friends in the private sector—to promote our mutual economic and national security through global technology leadership.

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The Power to Innovate

Covid-19, mRNA, and government and private sector roles in healthcare

The Japanese public is concerned that domestic pharmaceutical companies have yet to launch a single Covid-19 vaccine. Some may argue that this is due to a low rate of vaccine confidence, as is seen in the national tendency to avoid the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which has, in turn, caused a problem for vaccine development.

Although there may, indeed, be such a factor, this would not be the primary reason—especially not for the delay in the domestic development of a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine.

It should be noted that Moderna, Inc., the US pharmaceutical and biotechnology company that has produced an mRNA vaccine to combat Covid-19, had been advancing cancer therapeutic vaccine development since well before the pandemic.

In Japan, however, initiation of development was delayed compared with other advanced countries, and efforts to develop products based on mRNA technology have failed to make significant progress. This is not because the environment surrounding a prophylactic vaccine is unfavorable but, rather, it is due to the lack of an environment in which companies can take risks and consider new modalities.

The Role of Government

The coronavirus pandemic has made me reconsider what the government should do to promote the development of innovative healthcare products. Among the various ideas I have come up with, I would like to conclude—even though this may be obvious—that the primary responsibility of the government is to create an environment in which innovative products are highly valued and the private sector can invest in a broad range of research and development (R&D).

I see that Operation Warp Speed—the public–private partnership backed by the US government to support rapid development of a Covid-19 vaccine—has had a huge impact. This underlines the fact that the Japanese government needs to invest directly in companies that can provide clinical research and manufacturing facilities, especially during a public health emergency.

Yet, under normal circumstances, it is fair to say that the private sector in Japan can make more efficient investments than can the government. It is extremely challenging for the government to pinpoint and invest in a promising company and product. Further, a massive direct investment by the Japanese government is unlikely, given the current budgetary issues.

By evaluating the history of mRNA technology, we can see how difficult it is to identify rising stars. Thanks to its wide use around the world to prevent Covid-19 infections, mRNA technology is now well known. Before the pandemic, however, only a few of us predicted such a quick, practical application. A researcher from Hungary, according to media reports, even struggled to have the merits of her research results recognized, despite years of studies.

Private Sector Stands Ready

I believe that Japanese and US companies in the private sector are willing to take risks and engage in R&D if they recognize innovative product candidates and can appropriately evaluate them under the right conditions.

But how can Japan create such an environment? I will be committed to accomplishing this once I complete my current assignment in the United States, and policymaking becomes my direct responsibility in the government.

US corporations are involved in the two mRNA vaccines currently in use, a fact that highlights US power to pursue innovation. The collaboration between Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE in Germany brought us a Covid-19 vaccine, thanks to the US pharmaceutical company’s attitude of aggressively seeking cooperation among companies beyond the borders that might restrain activity under normal circumstances. It has made me realize, once again, the importance of open innovation.

During the rest of my stay in the United States, I look forward to gaining further insight into what drives the US power to innovate.

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Investing in Smart Agriculture

Japan startup Sagri is transforming family farming with AI

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Artificial intelligence (AI) gets a lot of attention these days, but its application to farming is not often in the spotlight.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Shunsuke Tsuboi, chief executive officer of Sagri Co., Ltd., which uses AI, machine learning, and mapping technologies to solve social problems.

On my podcast, Disrupting Japan, Tsuboi and I discussed the challenges that agricultural technology (agtech) startups in Japan face when it comes to funding, as well as the benefits of their technology.

Taking Root

Sagri was founded in June 2018 and uses satellite imaging and data to analyze farmland. The technology scans areas of up to 10 hectares in size, making it particularly suited to Japan, where farms are generally small. The data can be accessed using a smartphone app, and the goal is to help farmers better understand the condition of their soil and identify the best time for harvesting.

The idea for the company took shape in a laboratory at Yokohama National University, where Tsuboi is a mechanical engineering graduate student. His lab is using space-based technology to examine soil, and he and his business partners have been able to apply some of this to their platform, which shares the name of the company.

Applications

If you’ve walked around the Japanese countryside, you’ve probably seen small plots of abandoned farmland. Sometimes these even intermingle with residences in neighborhoods not far outside the capital.

Whether farmland is in use or abandoned makes a difference from a tax perspective, so the government manually checks the status of land each year. The AI behind Sagri’s analysis can determine with 90-percent accuracy whether a field is abandoned, drastically reducing the amount of work required of government staff.

Apart from taxation, the government is also interested in identifying farmland that can be revitalized. Satellite data that provides soil analysis can make that process easier.

Tsuboi noted that a big reason for the abandonment is that the farmers are getting older and are unable to maintain the land. One benefit of the Sagri platform is that machines can receive the data analysis and automatically perform tasks such as applying fertilizer.

Beyond Japan

Agtech is an area in which Japan has a great opportunity to be a world leader, and Sagri is putting its technology to work in India, where there are also many small farms. But getting the financing needed to keep operations going can be difficult. Sagri believes it has a solution.

“Many Indian farmers need loans, but they don’t have the chance to get them,” Tsuboi said. Because there are so many farmers, it is difficult for banks to spread enough money around. To have a better chance of funding, farmers want to show banks that they are a good investment, he explained. Banks cannot get that sort of information using present methods, but the satellite data analysis provided by Sagri can allow them to check the farmland’s condition and potential yields.

Tsuboi sees Africa as the company’s next market, noting potential in countries such as Kenya and Rwanda. Areas of Southeast Asia are also within Sagri’s sights.

Funding

There are not many agtech startups in Japan, but it seems that there should be. With lots of small farms, lots of creative people working on agtech at universities, and venture capitalists (VCs) with money to invest, why don’t we see more?

Tsuboi feels one reason is that VCs and the government both see farmland as low-growth opportunities. And attracting money from abroad, such as from Silicon Valley VCs, is not easy because they are focused on large-scale industrial farming. The farms on which Sagri is focused in Japan and India are too small to attract their interest.

But Sagri has had some success inside Japan, and announced in June that they have secured ¥155 million ($1.4 million) in funding from a group led by Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd., who was joined by Minato Capital Co., Ltd., Senshu Ikeda Capital Co., Ltd., and Hiroshima Venture Capital Co., Ltd. Also participating is Bonds Investment Group Co., Ltd., whose Hyogo Kobe Startup Fund, established in March, is making its first investment.

Sagri is a great example of a Japanese startup that can assist people at home and also have a much bigger impact—and earn a much bigger profit—abroad. Globally, the company can help millions of small family farms thrive, and they can bring great returns for investors in the process.

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Listen to this episode of Disrupting Japan.

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