Fostering Innovation from Science: Effective Academic-Industry Collaborations in Japan

Event Details:
Date: Wed, 29 May 2024
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Location: Lab 5 Seminar Room D23
* coffee and snacks will be served

While Japan has produced many Nobel Prizes, there have been challenges in translating research into economic and commercial impact. Enhancing partnerships between academia and industry holds great potential for catalyzing innovation. However, the motivations of academic research and industry research can be very different, making collaborating difficult.

Tapping into his extensive leadership roles in academia (RIKEN), industry (Hitachi), and venture capital in Japan, Singapore, Silicon Valley, and Israel, Dr. Kenji Takeda will propose ways for academic and industry researchers to build productive partnerships.

The seminar will touch on the following:

• Fostering excellent university environments that nurture innovation
• Types of academic-industry exchanges that create the potential for innovation
• Key factors, beyond funding, that enable impactful investments in universities
• Building an ecosystem and sharing knowledge to encourage entrepreneurship

As an example of efforts to transform science to innovation, Dr. Takeda will introduce the collaboration between Cordundum Systems Biology and OIST on the COI-NEXT microbiome project.

About Dr. Kenji Takeda

Dr. Kenji Takeda is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Corundum Innovation Co Ltd. He also serves as Advisor and Auditor of Corundum Systems Biology. Prior to joing Corundum, Takeda worked for Hitachi, Ltd., the largest electronics company in Japan, serving as Vice President of New Business Creation and Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Hitachi America Ltd. He established and served as President of the Hitachi Catalyst Fund, the corprate venture capital fund of Hitachi in Silicon Valley. From 2005 until 2011, he was Executive Director at RIKEN, Japan's largest comprehensive research institution.  Takeda also teaches entrepreneurship as a Visiting Professor at Waseda University. He serves on the board of several companies and is currently a Director of the Japan-Israel Friendship Foundation. He received a BS, MS and PhD in engineering from the University of Tokyo and a Master of Science from MIT.

The seminar is sponsored by OIST Innovation and the OIST Global Bioconvergence Center of Innovation.