Key Questions
By 2050, 70% of the world’s population are expected to be living in cities and metropolitan areas. Japan’s population is aging and shrinking, especially in rural areas. In regional Japan, a new approach is needed, one that appeals to younger generations and that offers a dynamic combination of sustainable features.
- How will humans live in greater harmony with nature?
- How will we cope with climate change and create a zero-emission economy?
- How can we create a community that offers happiness, health, and well-being?
- How can we bring rural areas to life in the post-Covid era?
- How can we produce energy, food, and work in a self-sufficient and sustainable way?
- How can we create and maintain a 100% circular lifestyle?
PDIE Group and OIST are gathering some of the world’s most outstanding innovators and future thinkers to envision a roadmap that will help us answer all these questions and more. Our aim is to create a fertile seedbed for innovation by inspiring scientists, policy makers, and investors to take completely new approaches and reinvent the way we coexist with nature.
Agenda
We have a rich agenda with keynotes and interactive workshop-style sessions. We will bring together people from international and Japanese backgrounds for a productive discussion that will launch an ecosystem of creative minds, investors, and future thinkers who can harness innovation to re-balance growing regional disparities and build prosperous communities.
Some of our keynote speakers include:
Noriyuki Shikata, Secretary General at Prime Minister's Office for Public Communications
Dr. Karin Markides, OIST president
Lucas Evans, CEO and founder of E3 Agriculture
Rudolf Hilti, The System Change Foundation
Kyoko Nishi, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of Japan
Masanori Kobayashi, Sasakawa Peace Foundation
Adnan Hassan, BIG IDEA Foundation And more!
We will go through a discovery process and innovation journey following this protocol: “Connect - Scan - Focus - Act.” Our Future Visioning will be inspired both by a technology-centric approach and a human-centric approach. Practitioners and innovators will talk about visions for the future that their breakthroughs will bring to life.
At the end of our gathering, everyone will have a clearer vision of how to build a sustainable small city or community and will have achieved the following outcomes: Key learnings about creating decentralized, self-sufficient, sustainable cities/communities Specific learnings in the area of systems thinking for regenerative agriculture and food systems, renewable energy, sustainable mobility and tourism, and the social/cultural aspects including community governance Knowledge of how to build prototypes for new projects that can be executed within a collaborative community Ways to nurture talent and build new connections
