Activity Report
MRI DEMO DAY 2024 (March 7th)
MRI DEMO DAY 2024 was held at Otemachi Mitsui Hall on March 7th, 2024 focusing on how startups and think tanks have come to pioneer solutions to societal issues. The event showcased examples of co-creation activities between societal issue-based startups and MRI. It welcomed more than 400 participants both at the venue and online.
Things kicked off with a keynote speech by Kazunari Taguchi, the CEO of Borderless Japan Corporation, who has established many social businesses. He presented many examples that convey the significance of startups in resolving societal issues, the importance of creating an ecosystem that supports startups’ activities, and the mechanism of campanio, a Latin word referring to a ‘person with whom one shares bread,’ to create a community for greater impact. This was followed by presentations of examples of startups’ co-creation through business activities with MRI as well as presentations of BAP finalists’ and other companies’ co-creation activities for societal impact. The table below lists the presentation titles.
At the end of the event, a multi-perspective panel discussion was held on how to scale up a business in terms of impact creation through co-creation between large companies and startups. The panelists expressed opinions on the importance of startups as business entities, the importance of leadership of large companies, and the need to envision a big business with small starts to better address societal issues. After the closing remarks, a networking session, which lasted nearly two hours, provided a venue for exchange between people from large companies, local governments, startups, and others.
ICF welcomes all members to take part in the co-creation cases presented at the event. Please refer to the report once posted on the ICF website—ICF looks forward to creating collective impact with all!
Seminar on the Listings of Societal Issues (February 28th)
ICF has held the Seminar on the Listings of Societal Issues over six sessions to provide an overview Resolving Societal Issues Through Innovation Listings of Societal Issues 2023, including highlights from this latest edition.
The sixth and final session covered the Disaster Prevention & Infrastructure area. After an explanation of the area, Ryusuke Kaneki of UPWARD, Inc., who won the Best Growth Award at BAP 2022, talked about UPWARD’s eponymous mobile app, which uses customer-relationship data and location information for the digital transformation of disaster prevention and recovery. Following this, Tsukasa Honda, CEO of Geocreates, Inc., who won the Excellence Award at BAP 2023, talked about a virtual evacuation drill using ToPolog, a database tool developed in-house for VR simulation.
Videos of all six sessions are available exclusively for ICF members. (Some content is private and not included.) Please feel free to watch them at your convenience.
Videos: https://icf.mri.co.jp/note/lsi2023_seminar/ (in Japanese only)
New Entrepreneurial Stories of Impactful ICF Members (#42)
In order to tackle societal issues through business, entrepreneurs must have excellent interpersonal skills and strong organizational capabilities. What do they think and how are they trying to create the world they envision? The ICF has published a series of articles that sheds light on the personalities of entrepreneurs who are striving to resolve societal issues. The goal of these articles is to share with readers the philosophies of and the issues being tackled by these entrepreneurs, which in turn should accelerate future breakthroughs that contribute to society as a whole.
The new article covers nanoni Inc., which provides a femtech welfare service carefull.
The list of Japanese articles is here.
The list of English articles is here.
SFY 2023 Activities Come to a Close
For this fiscal year, the third year of ICF, activities were planned and managed with an emphasis on practical aspects under the basic policy of implementing societal issue-resolving businesses in society. ICF thanks all those who have helped to make this past year’s worth of programs a success. Please look forward to another year of activities, which are already in the works.
Upcoming Activities (April-)
ICF General Assembly 2024 (April 22nd)
The The ICF General Assembly 2024 will be held at the start of the new fiscal year in April.
The assembly will feature a keynote lecture by Hirotaka Osawa, the Director of the Science Fiction Research and Development Center and an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University, about the future of societal issues from the perspective of science fiction, particularly honing in on the relationship between AI and humans. The ICF Secretariat will follow by explaining policy and plans for activities in the new fiscal year. The meeting will also see pitches from new ICF members. Details will be announced at a later date.
■ Time and date: 3:30pm – 5pm on April 22, 2024 JST
■ Venue: Online and the fourth floor of the headquarters of Mitsubishi Research Institute
Note: A networking event will be held at the venue after the assembly.
ICF Activity Report 2023
Members will receive the report in April.