The Super Smart Society (SSS) Promotion Consortium, led by Tokyo Tech, hosted a two-part hybrid matching workshop for participating institutions, i.e. Consortium Partners, and Tokyo Tech students and faculty on November 16 and December 7, 2022. The objective was to match the needs of Consortium Partners with the technological and human resource seeds provided by members of Tokyo Tech, and to offer an opportunity for direct discussions that lead to the creation of cross-disciplinary research teams. The event was once again co-hosted by the Tokyo Tech Academy for Super Smart Society. Through the Seeds Round and the Needs Round, this event brought together a total of 126 people, including 29 students, 45 professionals from 17 participating partner institutions, 31 Tokyo Tech faculty members, and other participants.
Seeds Round — Students' research ideas through presentations
Twenty-nine students presented and expanded on their research ideas through a poster session at the Seeds Round on November 16. After opening remarks by Tokyo Tech Vice President for Global Communication Nobuyuki Iwatsuki, who is also a professor at the School of Engineering, Futoshi Yamanaka of YASKAWA ELECTRIC CORPORATION delivered a keynote speech titled "YASKAWA introduction and activity for mechatronics technologies and products."
The participating students then took the stage to give one-minute overviews of their own research, after which they moved to the poster presentation area to introduce their research in more detail. At the venue, participating Consortium Partners voted for the best posters, and three students received awards for their excellent presentations.
Poster session
Student winners for best posters
At the end of the session, Kotaro Tanaka from The Ocean Policy Research Institute, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation gave an overall critique, closing the Seeds Round in a lively atmosphere.
Participants of Seeds Round
Needs Round — Research sought by partner companies
The December 7 Needs Round was held online. The keynote speech, "Introduction of DX Policy and Innovation Programs in Japan," was given by Hideyuki Saso, a professor at Tokyo Tech's School of Engineering. Saso introduced various examples of digital transformation (DX) being considered as part of the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), an initiative being promoted by Japan's Cabinet Office. After this, Consortium Partners had three minutes to introduce their activities, after which they moved to individual meeting rooms online for a Q&A session with students and faculty members.
To conclude the session, Director General Fumihide Kojima of the ICT Testbed Research and Development Promotion Center, Social Innovation Unit, Open Innovation Promotion Headquarters, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) offered his words of encouragement to the participating students.
Online Needs Round
Lively exchange and positive feedback from participants
Throughout the Seeds Round and Needs Round, there was a lively exchange of opinions between the students and participating partners.
Feedback from student participants included the following:
- It was interesting to discover the possibilities of my research and career.
- Apart from the technical aspects, I also gained a lot of experience about publishing and presenting, such as how to make other people understand my research quickly and how to explain what my research is about to non-specialists.
Feedback from participants partners included the following:
- I enjoyed listening to the presentations, which covered a wide range of topics from realistic themes to basic research, and the presentation skills of the students were excellent.
- In addition to the students' presentations of their seeds, we were able to exchange opinions with their supervisors and gain a deeper understanding of the purpose and characteristics of their research.
- It was a very fruitful workshop for both sides.
Participating consortium partner companies and organizations
Members from the following Consortium Partners and organizations participated in the Fall 2022 SSS matching workshop:
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)
- National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO)
- Azbil Corporation
- LG Japan Lab Inc.
- Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.
- Kubota Corporation
- KDDI CORPORATION
- JTEKT CORPORATION
- TOSHIBA CORPORATION
- Tokyu Research Institute, Inc.
- Tressbio Laboratory Co., Ltd.
- NEC Corporation
- Mazda Motor Corporation
- YASKAWA Electric Corporation
- Yokogawa Electric Corporation
- Rakuten Mobile, Inc.
- Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)
- The Ocean Policy Research Institute, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation
SSS matching workshops producing results
SSS matching workshops have been held since 2018 with the aim of building research teams that integrate different fields. The November and December 2022 rounds made up the eighth workshop to be held. The initiative has produced various results, such as technical exchanges meeting between participating institutions and laboratories, demonstration experiments involving participating institutions and students, and internship opportunities for students at participating partner institutions. In addition, the significance of the workshops is increasingly being recognized, and joint research projects are being initiated as a result.
Matching workshops are held twice a year, with the next one scheduled for the spring of 2023. The SSS Promotion Consortium and the Tokyo Tech Academy for Super Smart Society will continue to promote these matching workshops to create new opportunities for industry-academia-government collaboration.
