This event is available through livestream only. Please register in advance for the webinar by using the link below.

REGISTRATION LINK: https://bit.ly/2ziVGY2

Japan's startup ecosystem has matured dramatically over the past decade, with greater societal legitimacy, business success, and government support than most observers would have expected 20 years ago. Despite the challenging times ahead with the global pandemic, Japan's startup ecosystem is still poised to inject flexibility and innovation in a system often criticized as too rigid. This panel brings together scholars who have studied and participated in the ecosystem, and one of the key government officials pushing policy supporting the startup ecosystem. 

PANELISTS

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Masahiro Kotosaka, Associate Professor, Keio University

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Yoshiaki Ishii, Director of Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan

Since getting his start at the government's Small and Middle Enterprise Agency, Dr. Yoshiaki Ishii has shaped his career almost exclusively around supporting young companies and enhancing innovation. Now, he is the director of the Cabinet Office and responsible for determining how to execute the government's mission of supporting deep tech start-ups and creating an innovation ecosystem. Previously, he served as director of the New Business Policy Office, Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau, METI. He has demonstrated expertise in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), and Venture Business Policy, Industrial Organisation, and Innovation Policy. Dr. Ishii earned his PhD from Waseda University, in 2012, after completing an MBA at Aoyama Gakuin, in 2000.

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Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program (Moderator)

Many observers, and many investors, believe that young people are especially likely to produce the most successful new firms. Integrating administrative data on​ firms, workers, and owners, we study startups systematically in the U.S. and find​ that successfull entrepreneurs are middle-aged, not young. The mean age at​ founding for the 1-in-1,000 fastest growing new ventures is 45.0. The findings are​ similar when considering high-technology sectors, entrepreneurial hubs, and​ successful firm exits. Prior experience in the specific industry predicts much greater​ rates of entrepreneurial success. These findings strongly reject common hypotheses​ that emphasize youth as a key trait of successful entrepreneurs.

Speaker:

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Javier Miranda, Principal Economist, Economy-Wide Statistics Division, US Census Bureau

Bio:

Javier Miranda is Principal Economist at the U.S. Census Bureau where he began his career in 1998. Javier received his Ph.D. in Economics from American University in 2004. Previous to joining the Census Javier was a research consultant at the World Bank and the Urban Institute. Javier has published papers in the areas of industrial organization, technological change, job creation, entrepreneurship and firm financing. Among his publications are articles in the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Journal Macroeconomics, Review of Economic and Statistics, IMF Review, World Bank Economic Review, Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss, NBER Macroeconomics Annual, and multiple books and chapters.  Javier received the Director's Award for Innovation (2007) and the U.S. Department of Commerce Bronze Medal (2011). His contributions to data infrastructure are notable. Javier Miranda is responsible for the development of the Longitudinal Business Database and the Business Dynamics Statistics and is the Synthetic Longitudinal Business Database v3. Together with the USPTO Javier has led the development the Business Dynamics Statistics of Innovative Firms a longitudinal database of firms, patents, and inventors. Javier Miranda is also President of the Board of SEM an adult education and job readiness program designed to address the root causes of poverty, illiteracy, and violence in Washington DC.

Advisory on Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

The demographics of Japan’s aging society has galvanized a wide range of corporate efforts, supported both directly and indirectly by the government, to aggressively develop artificial intelligence-driven technologies and IT systems to perform work for which labor shortages are accelerating. We are beginning to see concrete corporate offerings to address shortages of specific types of skilled and unskilled labor, as well as numerous efforts underway to develop systems to cope with sparsely populated, elderly geographic regions and the logistics surrounding eldercare more generally.

In this talk, based on a forthcoming book chapter, Kushida examines specific corporate cases and government strategies suggesting how Japan’s population aging and shrinking has led to three primary interrelated drivers of significance to shaping technological trajectories: 1) Demographics as market opportunity of an entirely unprecedented scale to serve the needs of a rapidly aging society; 2) demographic change creating an acute labor shortage; and 3) favorable political and regulatory dynamics for pursuing the development and diffusion of new technological trajectories to solve social and economic challenges caused by demographic change. A critical implication is that if technologies developed or deployed within Japan to solve domestic demographic problems are applicable elsewhere, then Japan’s demographic challenge can be an opportunity to cultivate competitive products and services in global markets.

SPEAKER

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Kenji E. Kushida is a Japan Program Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and an affiliated researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Kushida’s research interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and information technology. He has four streams of academic research and publication: political economy issues surrounding information technology such as Cloud Computing; institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster; political strategies of foreign multinational corporations in Japan; and Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008). Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

PARKING

Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly. Nearest parking garage is Structure 7, below the Graduate School of Business Knight School of Management.

This event is part of the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project Public Forum Series.

Consumption is a major driver of national economies, and scholars often study important differences across consumption patterns across countries, which influence many aspects of their societies and economies. Yet, the underlying business of logistics operations, and how they support countries’ respective retail industries, has as much, if not more impact than simply examining consumer behavior. In this public forum, Ryuichi Kakui, with deep expertise in eCommerce logistics, will explain how logistics are used in retail industries, comparing across the world’s three largest economies: the US, China, and Japan. He will introduce the concept of strategic logistics thinking and the “4C” framework and informs leading strategic logistics thinking. A conversation with Kenji Kushida, who examines how technologies and specific industry dynamics shape varying models of political economies around the world, will then link the area of logistics and retail to important systemic differences and underlying similarities across the world’s leading economies, which are pursuing contrasting models of social, economic, and political organization.

SPEAKERS

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Ryoichi Kakui is the founder of E-Logit, the leading eCommerce logistics company in Japan. He has published 29 books related to logistics, Amazon, and “omnichannel” distribution, which have been published in Japan, the US, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam. He is a frequent commentator on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and other media. Educated in Sophia University in Japan with an MBA from Golden Gate University, he founded UKETORU in 2015, a app addressing the issue of re-delivery, which escalated to a social issue in Japan.

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Kenji Kushida is a research scholar at the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. One of this research themes examines how IT technologies shape political economies around the world, and how varying national political economic models shape the development trajectories of technologies. He leads the Silicon Valley – New Japan Project, a sustained platform for research and collaboration between Silicon Valley and the new and emerging aspects as Japan transforms itself.

PARKING

Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly. Open parking at Stanford University available starting 4:00pm unless otherwise marked. Nearest parking garage is Structure 7, below the Graduate School of Business Knight School of Management.