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Thomas Heatherwick

Founder and Design Director, Heatherwick Studio

Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose prolific and varied work over two decades is characterised by its ingenuity, inventiveness and originality.

Defying the conventional classification of design disciplines, Thomas founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994 to bring the practices of design, architecture and urban planning together in a single work space.

Thomas leads the design of all Heatherwick Studio projects, working in collaboration with a team of 170 highly skilled architects, designers, and makers. Thomas’ unusual approach applies artistic thinking to the needs of each project, resulting in some of the most acclaimed designs of our time. Based in London, Heatherwick Studio is currently working in four continents on projects valued at over £2 billion.

Thomas has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Royal Academician and in 2004 became the youngest Royal Designer for Industry.

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Knowing your Keynote Speakers – Thomas Heatherwick
Behind the Creative Minds of Heatherwick Studio
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Gerfried Stocker

Artistic Director, Ars Electronica

Gerfried Stocker is a media artist and telecommunications engineer. In 1991, he founded x-space, a team formed to carry out interdisciplinary projects, which went on to produce numerous installations and performances featuring elements of interaction, robotics and telecommunications. Since 1995, Gerfried Stocker has been artistic director of Ars Electronica. In 1995-96, he headed the crew of artists and technicians that developed the Ars Electronica Center’s pioneering new exhibition strategies and set up the facility’s in-house R&D department, the Ars Electronica Futurelab. He has been chiefly responsible for conceiving and implementing the series of international exhibitions that Ars Electronica has staged since 2004, and, beginning in 2005, for the planning and thematic repositioning of the new, expanded Ars Electronica Center.

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Knowing your Keynote Speakers – Gerfried Stocker
Taking a Page from Ars Electronica to Turn Tokyo into a City of the Arts
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Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Principle Scientist, Google

Blaise leads a team at Google focusing on Machine Intelligence for mobile devices—including both basic research and new products. His group works extensively with deep neural nets for machine perception, distributed learning, and agents, as well as collaborating with academic institutions on connectomics research. Until 2014 he was a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, where he worked in a variety of roles, from inventor to strategist, and led teams with strengths in interaction design, prototyping, computer vision and machine vision, augmented reality, wearable computing and graphics. Blaise has given TED talks on Seadragon and Photosynth (2007, 2012) and Bing Maps (2010). In 2008, he was awarded MIT’s prestigious TR35 (“35 under 35”).

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Knowing your Keynote Speakers – Blaise Agüera Y Arcas
Artificial Intelligence “Creation” Gives a Glimpse of What May Follow Human Thought
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Hiroaki Kitano

President and CEO, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.

KITANO is President and CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., President of The Systems Biology Institute, Professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, and Director of Laboratory for Disease Systems Modeling, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Kanagawa. Corporate Executive, Sony Corporation.

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Speaker Interview – Hiroaki Kitano
Thoughts on AI education strategy, the future of jobs, and the redefinition of creativity from an authority on artificial intelligence
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Neri Oxman

Associate Professor, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab

Neri Oxman, Architect and Designer, founded the Mediated Matter research group at the MIT Media Lab. Her research enhances the relationship between the built and the natural environments by implementing design principles inspired or engineered by Nature in the invention of novel digital design technologies.

Her work has been exhibited at MoMA (NYC), Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC), Museum of Science (Boston, MA), FRAC Collection (Orleans, France), and the 2010 Beijing Biennale. Permanent collections include MoMA (NYC), and the Centre Georges Pompidou Museum. In 2014, Oxman won the Vilcek Prize in Design and Boston Society of Architects Women in Design Award.

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Masayuki Sono

Co-Founding Partner, Clouds Architecture Office

In 2015 Clouds Architecture Office (Clouds AO) and Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch) collaborated with a team of subject matter experts on a proposal for a pioneering Mars mission. Their proposal, "Mars Ice House," was awarded the top prize in NASA’s Centennial Challenge for a 3D Printed Habitat on Mars. The team, comprised of Christina Ciardullo, Kelsey Lents, Jeffrey Montes, Michael Morris, Ostap Rudakevych, Masayuki Sono, Yuko Sono and Melodie Yashar, is currently participating in the conceptual design of a Martian habitat made of ice at NASA's Langley Research Center.

Masayuki Sono is a co-founding partner of Clouds Architecture Office based in New York with Ostap Rudakevych. He holds Masters Degrees from University of Washington and Kobe University. Masa has worked on diverse projects ranging from urban scale cultural complexes to public arts. He received American Institute of Architects Public Project Award with winning design for international competition of New York Staten Island 9/11 Memorial. He has taught at Pratt Institute and lectured at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art and University of Tokyo. Clouds AO's explorations focus on design of experiential qualities of built environment and research-based concepts that test architectural inhabitation of the atmosphere and outer space.

Related article
Speaker Interview – Masayuki Sono
A new typology for space exploration
Fusing Human factor and technology
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Melodie Yashar

Architect, Space Exploration Architecture / Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute

In 2015 Clouds AO and Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch) collaborated with a team of subject matter experts on a proposal for a pioneering Mars mission. Their proposal, "Mars Ice House," was awarded the top prize in NASA’s Centennial Challenge for a 3D Printed Habitat on Mars. The team, comprised of Christina Ciardullo, Kelsey Lents, Jeffrey Montes, Michael Morris, Ostap Rudakevych, Masayuki Sono, Yuko Sono and Melodie Yashar, is currently participating in the conceptual design of a Martian habitat made of ice at NASA's Langley Research Center.

Melodie Yashar is an architectural designer based in New York and a member of the design collective Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch)—a group building upon a 10-year portfolio of academic space research and practice in developing human-supporting concepts for space exploration. With a background in industrial design, Melodie co-teaches a joint industrial design and architecture studio at Pratt Institute as part of NASA's X-Hab (eXploration Habitat) Innovation Challenge for Human Centered Designs (2016), a NASA project collaboration to develop transit modules for Mars. Melodie is also co-founder of Sonic Platforms, an experimental media collective operating at the intersection of audiovisual art and the built environment, seeking to activate public engagement through the experience of sound and moving image.

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Speaker Interview – Melodie Yashar
Future Essentials from Extreme Environments
The Story Behind Mars Ice House
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Tom Sachs

Artist

Working primarily in bricolage—the art of making the most of cheap, found, and readily available materials—the sculptor TOM SACHS is best known for his mash-up remakes of cultural touchstones. He and his studio have fashioned everything from a Chanel branded guillotine and a line of Ikea particleboard and carbon fiber Donald Judd chairs, to a complete, ruthless, loving American re-engineering of traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony, a 1/25 scale Radiant City in which Le Corbusier and McDonald's utopian totalitarianisms are synthesized in mutually reinforcing harmony, and an ongoing NASA-paralleling space program. But his true subject is the humanity of work itself, skilled labor that is, and the way that subcultures of making, and in particular those defined by high levels of precision and invention (e.g. fine-finish woodwork, hip-hop songwriting), expose rifts in our individual and collective identity formation. The industrial indoctrination films (e.g. Ten Bullets, COLOR, A Love Letter to Plywood, How to Sweep, and the feature-length A Space Program), encyclopedic publications, systems of production, and generous, collaborative studio culture that he obsesses over every day in support of these projects have, in the minds of many, raised his practice to the level of a social science or a form of ethics.

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Zack Denfeld

Artist / Co-founder, the Center for Genomic Gastronomy / Researcher, Science Gallery, Dublin

Zack Denfeld is an American artist who works at the intersection of art and science, with a focus on the ecological, cultural and social dimensions of life on Spaceship Earth. In 2010, with Cathrine Kramer, he co-founded the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, an artist-led think tank that investigates the organisms and environments manipulated by human food cultures. The Center has collaborated with scientists, chefs, hackers and farmers in Asia, Europe and North America. Their work has been published in WIRED, Science, Nature and Gastronomica and exhibited at the World Health Organization, Kew Gardens and the V&A. Zack holds degrees from Syracuse University and the University of Michigan and is currently a lecturer of interaction design at the Bergen Academy of Art & Design and a researcher at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin.

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Ang Ming Chee

General Manager, George Town World Heritage Incorporated

Ang Ming Chee has been the General Manager of George Town World Heritage Incorporated since January 2016. After accumulated some 14-year of international experience in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Sweden, she returned to Malaysia to serve the State of Penang. She has solid competence in conducting research and public policy analysis, and has drafted the chapter on “Culture, Arts, and Heritage” for the Penang Paradigm project for the Penang Institute (2013). She has demonstrated leadership in project planning and team management, and has extensive experience as trainer on conflict management and capacity building. She received her Doctoral Degree in Political Science from National University of Singapore (2011) and a Master of International Studies from the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden (2002). She speaks fluent Thai and can jokes in Swedish. She has some 20 publications, including a monograph, Institutions and Social Mobilization: The Chinese Education Movement in Malaysia 1951-2011, published by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore (2014). Other publication includes a journal article at Pacific Affairs (2012), 6 edited books, 6 chapters in edited book, 2 working papers, 4 articles—including the cover story for Penang Monthly on “Deepening George Town’s Heritage: The Follow-Up and Challenges Ahead” (2012).

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Vo Trong Nghia

Architect / Founding Partner, Vo Trong Nghia Architects

Vo Trong Nghia was born in 1976 in Vietnam. He moved to Japan in 1996 as a Japanese government’s scholarship student and started studying architecture. After graduation from Nagoya Institute of Technology in 2002, he joined the University of Tokyo’s Landscape and Civic Design Laboratory under the Department of Civil Engineering and received his master’s degree in 2004.
In 2006, he started his firm, Vo Trong Nghia Architects in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His aim is to rehabilitate Vietnamese urban condition with greenery in order to reconnect humans back to nature. Realization of series of green project and bamboo structure brought him global awards and recognition.
Nghia received international prizes and honors including but not limited to; AR House award, ARCASIA gold medal and Building of the Year, FuturArc Green leadership Award. He also was selected as one of 2014s Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.

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Yukinori Yanagi

Artist

Yukinori Yanagi was born in 1959. He completed studies at Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he earned a degree (MFA) in sculpture. In 1993, Yanagi received the “Aperto ‘93” award at the 45th Venice Biennale. He set up studios in New York and San Francisco where he worked actively until 2001. Yanagi has also been invited to a number of overseas international exhibitions such as La Biennale de Lyon and Whitney Biennial. In 1995, he conceived a project to regenerate a legacy of modern industrialization on a remote island (an abandoned copper mine), into a work of art. This project culminated in the completion of “Inujima Seirensho Art Museum” in 2008. After returning to Japan, Yanagi is now serving as a director at “Art Base Momoshima,” a private art center he established by using an abandoned school in Momoshima, Onomichi City. Yanagi is currently exploring new horizons of expression, with a remote island in the Seto Inland Sea as his work field. In addition to being invited to participate in Busan Biennale this year, Yanagi is currently holding a personal exhibition at BankART Studio NYK in Yokohama, using the entire museum, as a culmination of all activities he has conducted so far as an artist.

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Naoki Adachi

Sustainable Business Producer / Founder and CEO, Response Ability, Inc.

After receiving PhD from Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, worked for National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) and Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) for tropical forest research projects. Started his own consultancy, Response Ability, Inc., in 2006.
Since then he has been involved and led numbers of projects for leading Japanese corporations and ministries on sustainable business, responsible supply chain management and biodiversity conservation. Have working for Japan Business Initiative for Biodiversity (JBIB) as Executive Director since 2008. Also works as committee members or advisors to Sustainable Management Forum, Sustainability Forum Japan and governmental committees.

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Hiroaki Katayama

President & CEO, Stratasys Japan

Hiroaki Katayama graduated from the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University. He was appointed President & CEO of Stratasys Japan in January 2014. With extensive experience in managing the business of importing industrial machinery, including 3D printers, as well as managing a manufacturing business in the Chinese market, Katayama heads Stratasys Japan, which has been focusing on major industries such as automobiles, education, consumer electronics, consumer goods, medical equipment, and industrial equipment.
Prior to joining Stratasys Japan, Katayama held various executive positions in Altech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Altech), its subsidiaries, and related companies. After joining Altech in 1993, he served as manager of the Objet Business Department as well as manager of the Digital Printer Business Department, both of which are under the Industrial Machinery Business Headquarters. After 2011, Katayama has overseen China, concurrently serving as president of Altech New Materials (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. and director at Altech Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. After October 2013, he served as representative managing officer, and concurrently as deputy general manager of the the Industrial Machinery Business Headquarters and manager of the Digital Printer Business Department.

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Keisuke Ichihara

Executive Officer, Rakuten, Inc.

Keisuke Ichihara was born in Osaka, Japan in 1968. He received an LL.B from Kyoto University in 1991. After working in the banking and IT industries, he joined Rakuten, Inc. in 2007 where, in 2015, he was appointed as an Executive Officer. His current responsibilities include government relations, with a focus on the promotion of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” which the Japanese Government is pushing forward.

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Yukihiro Maru

President and CEO, Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.

Completed a doctorate in the Department of Biotechnology at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo; Ph.D. (Agriculture)
While still studying at the Graduate School, Maru established Leave a Nest with only science and technology undergraduate and graduate students. He was the first to commercialize “on-demand cutting-edge science experiment classes” in Japan. He operates “knowledge-manufacturing” that generates seeds of new businesses by combining management resources and technologies that lie dormant in universities and local communities. He has also promoted more than 200 projects through his “knowledge platform,” an infrastructure that gathers knowledge that exist in the world. Maru is an innovator who has been involved in launching many venture firms such as Euglena, for which he has served as a technical adviser.

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Izumi Okoshi

Executive Business Creation Director (EBD), Business Creation Center / Head, Dentsu Innovation Institute / Director, Legacy Project Design Office and 2020 Project Production Department

Ms. Okoshi joined Dentsu in 1998 after working as a research fellow at a private think tank and as a brand manager at a foreign-affiliated manufacturer. She assumed her current post in 2014 after serving in the Marketing Department, Communication Design Center, Business Design Lab, etc.

She has been engaged in promoting co-creation type business design for sustainable growth through industry-government-academia / cross-industrial collaboration, in addition to aiming at accelerating innovations, taking 2020 & Beyond as an opportunity, and being involved in client companies’ domestic and overseas business strategies and brand communication strategies.

2016: Member of screening jury for Nikkei BP Marketing Awards
Member of screening jury for All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation (ACC) Marketing Effectiveness Category, etc.

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Speaker Interview – Izumi Okoshi
Not just solving problems, but a passion for affluence
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Koichiro Yoshida

CEO / Founder, CrowdWorks Inc.

Koichiro Yoshida was born in 1974 in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture. After working at Pioneer Corporation and other companies, he experienced listing DRECOM on Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Mothers market as an executive officer of that company. In November 2011, he founded CrowdWorks Inc. and has been operating “CrowdWorks,” the largest crowdsourcing platform in Japan. The company has been listed on Mothers in three years after it was founded. As of August 2016, the number of its registered members has exceeded one million, and the number of companies using its services has reached 140,000. In 2015, the company received an award at the 1st Nippon Venture Awards hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and also an award at the Good Design Award 2015.
Blog: http://crowdworks.jp/ceo-blog/
Twitter: @yoshidaCW

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Akiyuki Minami

CEO/Co-Founder, coconala Inc.

Born in 1975 in Nagoya City, Akiyuki Minami graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University and completed an MBA at Oxford University. After engaging in investment and management support activities at the Corporate Research Department of Sumitomo Bank (now Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) and Advantage Partners, a pioneer in corporate acquisition fund, Minami founded WelSelf Inc. (now called coconala Inc.) in January 2012, and developed and manages a C2C EC platform called “Coconala.”

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Koji Koizumi

Founder & CEO, R.GENE Inc. / Chief Editor, IoT NEWS

Born in 1973; chief editor of IoT NEWS; and IoT consultant.
Studied neurocomputing at Osaka University, and assumed current position after working at Andersen Consulting (currently known as Accenture), Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and Techfirm Inc.
Has written the following books:
Nijikan de Wakaru Zukan IoT Bijinesu Nyumon (Asa Publishing Co., Ltd.)”
Kokyaku to Motto Tsunagaru (Nikkei BP)”

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Tsuguo Nobe

Chief Advanced Service Architect and Director, Intel Corp / Visiting Associate Professor, Nagoya University

Joined NEC Corp. in 1983 and established IBM PC compatible business in the US and European countries and then introduced those product lines also in Japan after 1995. At the wake of Internet Broadband era, in 2001, established one of the Japan’s biggest On-line Game companies and served as CEO. Joined NISSAN in 2004 and spearheaded the engineering and business developments of Vehicle IoT until 2012. Since 2012, pursuing research, engineering, business and policy developments of Connected and Automated Vehicles. Acting Visiting Associate Professor at Nagoya University since 2014.

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Genki Kanaya

President and CEO, akippa Inc.

Part-time lecturer at Graduate School / School of Economics, Osaka University
After graduating from high school, Kanaya played soccer for four years as a trainee in local soccer leagues and the J League. After retiring, he gained experience in sales at a listed company for two years. In February 2009, he founded akippa when he was 24 years old.
From 2014, Kanaya started operating “akippa,” a peer-to-peer parking lot sharing service that allows users to park their cars in 15-minute time slots in vacant spaces at monthly parking lots and private homes.
Kanaya has raised a total of 1.2 billion yen in funding from DeNA, GLOBIS, TORIDOLL, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd., among others. In December 2014, Kanaya won first place at the IVS 2014 Fall Kyoto Launch Pad, the most prominent venture capital presentation event in Japan.

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Hisashi Taniguchi

President & CEO, ZMP Inc.

Hisashi Taniguchi has been involved in the development of anti-lock brake system at an automotive parts manufacturer. After experiencing technology sales and entrepreneurship at a trading company, he founded ZMP in 2001. He worked on the development and sale of residential bipedal walking robots and music robots for home use, and then advanced into the automotive field from 2008. He has supplied autonomous vehicles for manufacturers and research institutes. Currently, Taniguchi is promoting the “Robot of Everything” strategy aimed at the development of robot technology in various fields such as robot taxis, CarriRo (Kyariro), and drones. He has been enrolled in a doctoral program at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music from 2016.

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Tatsuyuki Negoro

Professor, Waseda Business School / Director, Research Institute of Information Technology and Management, Waseda University

Tatsuyuki Negoro is a professor at Waseda Business School, and Director of Research Institute of Information Technology and Management, Waseda University. He graduated from Kyoto University, completed an MBA at Keio Business School, worked for a steel manufacturer, became a visiting researcher at University of Hull in the UK, taught at Bunkyo University, etc. and is now serving in his current position. He has also served in such posts as president of the Japan Society for Management Information, vice-president of International Academy of CIO, Japan, and adviser for CRM Association Japan. His major publications include “IoT Jidai no Kyoso Bunseki Furemuwaku (Competition Analysis Framework in the IoT Age)” (compiled by Chuo Keizaisha), “Bijinesu Shiko Jikken (Business Thought Experiments” (Nikkei BP), “The Logic of Business Creation” (Nikkei BP), and “The Strategy of Substitutes” (Toyo Keizai Inc.).

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Michitaka Hirose

Professor, the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology

Michitaka Hirose is a professor at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology.
He was born in Kanagawa prefecture, on May 7, 1954.
He received M.eng. and Phd. in 1979 and 1982 from the University of Tokyo.
He has been an associate professor, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo from 1982 to 1999.
His current research activities include Systems Engineering, Human Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality. He wrote a book “Virtual Reality” (Sangyo Tosho).

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Tatsuro Sasaki

President, Sasaki Architects and Associates

Born on October 9, 1964 in Tokyo
Withdrew after acquiring credit for a doctor’s degree at the Graduate School, Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1992; after working at Design Studio Architects, assumed current position in 1994; and involved in community revitalization, research and study, and education, centering on architectural design. Currently, serving as a member of the board of directors at Tokyo Society of Architects & Building Engineers, vice president of Yokohama Machizukuri Club, and landscape adviser for Chiyoda City.

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Hideki Kasai

Manager, PPP Business Department, Technological Business Development Division, Obayashi Corporation

Hideki Kasai joined Obayashi Corporation in 1989, and since then has designed redeveloped complexes, office buildings, commercial establishments, film studios, city parks, and more. In addition to working on a hypothetical CG recreation of the ancient Library of Alexandria, he has been involved in the “FUWWAT2050” construction project and the “Smart Water City Tokyo” construction project.

List of major awards:
・Grand Prize in Environmental Art
・Nagoya City Scenic Design Award
・Aichi Cityscape and Architecture Award
・IES Illumination Award
・Good Design Award

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Kevin Slavin

Assistant Professor, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab

Kevin Slavin is a serial entrepreneur and assistant professor / founder of the Playful Systems group at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge. The group works on projects ranging from chess tournaments in Las Vegas to urban metagenomics in Tokyo, researching how the experience of complex systems can move beyond information, into delight.
Prior to MIT, Slavin founded several companies, including Area/Code, which pioneered the use of new technologies and platforms (like GPS, optic sensing, and genetic data) in game development, inventing novel forms of interplay between games and cities. The company was acquired by Zynga in 2011, after years of working with everyone from Nike to Disney to Electronic Arts.
His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Design Museum of London, the Frankfurt Museum fur Moderne Kunst, and other international venues. There was a recent feature profile in WIRED Japan and his collaboration with Mori is currently exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale.
His influential TED talk on How Algorithms Shape the World has nearly 4 million viewers, and has been the inspiration for scripted TV shows, a 60 Minutes segment, and advertising for Apple. 

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Masayuki Ishikawa

Japanese Manga Artist

Born in Osaka Prefecture, Masayuki Ishikawa debuted as a manga artist in 1997 with “Nihon Seifu Chokkan Kidosentai Komuin V,” which became his first serialized manga. In 1999, he won a runner-up award for the Chiba Tetsuya Prize for “Kami no Sumu Yama” (included in “Hitokiri Ryoma”). After a series of short manga stories titled “Shukan Ishikawa Masayuki (Weekly Masayuki Ishikawa)” was carried on “Morning” magazine, “Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture” was serialized starting in 2004 (and concluded in 2014). With this work, Ishikawa won the 12th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Manga Grand Prize as well as the 32nd Kodansha Manga Award. Subsequently, “Maria, the Virgin Witch” started as a series in 2009 (and concluded in 2015). His latest work “Modowanai Hoshi” became serialized in May 2015.

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Larry Weiss

Chief Medical Officer, AOBiome LLC

Larry Weiss MD is the Chief Medical Officer at AOBiome. He has an extensive background in natural products chemistry, microbiology, clinical medicine, and pharmaceutical development and product commercialization. Dr. Weiss is board certified in Anesthesiology, has an MD from Stanford University Medical School, and a BS from Cornell University in Biochemistry. He has a multiple patents and is published in the areas of chemistry, electrophysiology, pharmacology, and microbiology. Dr. Weiss is the founder of CleanWell Company.

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Heizo Takenaka

Professor, Toyo University / Professor Emeritus, Keio University / Chairman, Institute for Urban Strategies, The Mori Memorial Foundation /Director, Academyhills

Heizo Takenaka is a Professor at Toyo University and a Professor Emeritus at Keio University. He is also Chairman of the Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation and Director of Academyhills.
In 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi named him the Minister of Economic/Fiscal Policy, the Minister of both Financial Services and Economic/Fiscal Policy in 2002, the Minister of both Economic / Fiscal Policy and Privatization of the Postal Services in 2004, the Minister of both Internal Affairs and Communication, and Privatization of the Postal Services in 2005. The following year, he returned to academia, leaving both the Cabinet and the House of Councilors when Prime Minister Koizumi resigned.
He received his B.A. in Economics from Hitotsubashi University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Osaka University. His academic experience is numerous, including Visiting Associate Professor of Harvard University in 1989, and Professor of Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University in 1996.
He is the author of numerous books, including "The Structural Reforms of the Koizumi Cabinet".

Related article
ICF committee interview – Heizo Takenaka
"Urban Competitiveness" Drives Innovative Competitiveness. The Meaning of Imagining Cities in 2035.
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Joichi Ito

Director, MIT Media Lab

Joichi Ito is the director of the MIT Media Lab as well as a Professor of the Practice of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT. He is chairman of the board of PureTech Health and a board member of Sony Corp., the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , the Mozilla Foundation and The New York Times Co. He is the co-founder and a board member of Digital Garage. He is an Independent Senior Advisor to the Minister for Financial Services of Japan and a member of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Center of Innovation (COI) STREAM governance committee. He is an Executive Researcher of Keio Research Institute at SFC. He has created numerous Internet companies, including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He was an early-stage investor in Formlabs, Flickr, Kickstarter, littleBits, Path, Twitter, Wikia and other companies.
In 2008, Ito was named by Businessweek as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web. In 2011 Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers. Also in 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute in recognition of his role as one of the world's leading advocates of Internet freedom. In 2011 and 2012, Nikkei Business selected him as one of the 100 most influential people for the future of Japan.
In 2013, Ito was awarded a Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, from The New School. In 2014, he was inducted into the SXSW Interactive Festival Hall of Fame and was awarded the Golden Plate Award by the Academy of Achievement. In 2015, Ito was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Tufts University.

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Hiroo Ichikawa

Professor and Dean, Professional Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University / Executive Director, The Mori Memorial Foundation

Hiroo Ichikawa is Dean at the Professional Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. He is also Executive Director, The Mori Memorial Foundation and President at the Meiji University Research Center for Crisis and Contingency Management. He is an expert in urban policy, urban and regional planning, and crisis management and has authored numerous books on issues related to Tokyo and metropolitan regions, including Tokyo’s Unipolar Concentration Will Save Japan (2015), Tokyo 2025: Urban Strategies for the Post-Olympic Era (2015), Urban Strategy for Tokyo (2012), Learning from the Disaster in Japan (2011), and Creating Japan’s Future (2008). He has also served numerous public and private organizations including the Japanese government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Japan Telework Society, and Japan Association of Emergency Qualified Specialists. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Urban Planning at Waseda University, he went on to the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he was granted a Doctoral degree in Urban and Regional Planning. He was born in Tokyo in 1947 and is a first-class registered architect in Japan.

Related article
ICFcommittee interview – Hiroo Ichikawa
How Should Tokyo Change for a Bright 2035?
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Fumio Nanjo

Director, Mori Art Museum

Fumio Nanjo has been director of Mori Art Museum since November 2006. Prior to taking the directorship at the Mori, he had served as the museum’s deputy director (2002-2006), after working with cultural organizations including the Japan Foundation(1978-1986). His main achievements include commissioner of the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1997), commissioner at the Taipei Biennale (1998), member of jury committee of the Turner Prize (1998), artistic director of the Yokohama Triennale 2001, and artistic director of the Singapore Biennale (2006/2008). He graduated from Keio University in the faculty of Economics(1972) and Letters (Philosophy, Aesthetics and Science of Arts, 1977). Publications include Asian Contemporary Art Report: China, India, Middle East and Japan (2010) and A Life with Art (2012).

Related article
ICF committee interview – Fumio Nanjo
Living in Space and the Evolution of AI. The Greater Impact of Culture on Cities of the Future.

Speaker

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Day 1
Day 2

Thomas Heatherwick

Founder and Design Director, Heatherwick Studio

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Gerfried Stocker

Artistic Director, Ars Electronica

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Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Principle Scientist, Google

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Hiroaki Kitano

President and CEO, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.

+ Profile

Neri Oxman

Associate Professor, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab

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Masayuki Sono

Co-Founding Partner, Clouds Architecture Office

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Melodie Yashar

Architect, Space Exploration Architecture / Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute

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Tom Sachs

Artist

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Zack Denfeld

Artist / Co-founder, the Center for Genomic Gastronomy / Researcher, Science Gallery, Dublin

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Ang Ming Chee

General Manager, George Town World Heritage Incorporated

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Vo Trong Nghia

Architect / Founding Partner, Vo Trong Nghia Architects

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Yukinori Yanagi

Artist

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Naoki Adachi

Founder and CEO, Response Ability, Inc.

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Hiroaki Katayama

President & CEO, Stratasys Japan

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Keisuke Ichihara

Executive Officer, Rakuten, Inc.

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Yukihiro Maru

President and CEO, Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.

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Izumi Okoshi

Head, Dentsu Innovation Institute

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Koichiro Yoshida

CEO / Founder, CrowdWorks Inc.

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Akiyuki Minami

CEO/Co-Founder, coconala Inc.

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Tatsuyuki Negoro

Professor, Waseda Business School / Director, Research Institute of Information Technology and Management, Waseda University

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Koji Koizumi

Founder & CEO, R.GENE Inc. / Chief Editor, IoT NEWS

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Tsuguo Nobe

Chief Advanced Service Architect and Director, Intel Corp / Visiting Associate Professor, Nagoya University

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Genki Kanaya

President and CEO, akippa Inc.

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Hisashi Taniguchi

President & CEO, ZMP Inc.

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Michitaka Hirose

Professor, the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology

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Tatsuro Sasaki

President, Sasaki Architects and Associates

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Hideki Kasai

Manager, PPP Business Department, Technological Business Development Division, Obayashi Corporation

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Kevin Slavin

Assistant Professor, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab

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Masayuki Ishikawa

Japanese Manga Artist

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Larry Weiss

Chief Medical Officer, AOBiome LLC

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Heizo Takenaka

Professor, Toyo University / Professor Emeritus, Keio University / Chairman, Institute for Urban Strategies, The Mori Memorial Foundation /Director, Academyhills

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Joichi Ito

Director, MIT Media Lab

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Hiroo Ichikawa

Professor and Dean, Professional Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University / Executive Director, The Mori Memorial Foundation

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Fumio Nanjo

Director, Mori Art Museum

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