ABOUT THE LATEST ICT MISSION TO JAPAN

Submitted by Alina Danieles… on 11 December 2016

From 14 to 18 November, the EU-Japan Centre organised the second edition of its matchmaking mission to Japan for EU SMEs and clusters and focusing on ICT.

The purpose of this 5-day mission was to support and encourage participants in establishing a first contact with Japanese clusters and SMEs in view of further collaboration and concrete business opportunities. This year 18 participants attended the mission, among which 13 SMEs and 1 Cluster* from 11 EU countries: Croatia, Greece, Spain, Romania, Poland, France, Hungary, Germany, Portugal, Bulgaria and Belgium. The mission was divided into three parts: preparatory lectures; company visits in Tokyo and a 3-day access to the “Embedded Technology and Internet of Things-Japan 2016” Fair in Yokohama. On the first day participants were welcomed at the EU‐ Japan Centre’s Head Office in Tokyo for an invigorating preparatory session during which they attended 3 lectures: Cloud Computing Related Products, Technologies and Services in the Japanese Market, Public Procurement in Japan and Japanese IoT Market and Industry Trends.

The second day consisted of companies’ visits to: 1. NTT Network Innovation where participants had the opportunity to discover the Auto-recovery System against Cyberattacks, the Grapon system (a graph analysis technology) and the clothing-type used in a wide range applications from athletic training to stress management. 2. Panasonic Centre Tokyo. The visit was led by Mrs. Reiko TSUCHIYA, Chief and Mr. Wataru NOMIYAMA, Senior Manager. Participants were introduced to Panasonic new challenges and its smart housing project. 3. Asial Corporation, a Japanese SME composed of employees coming from different countries. The Founder & CEO, Mr. Masa TANAKA shared his experience about implementing a company in Japan.

AT THE ICT FAIR

The last three days were dedicated to participants’ individual presentations, B2B meetings and exhibition of the EU-Japan delegation booth at the “Embedded Technology and Internet of Things” fair at Pacifico Yokohama. The delegation also had the opportunity to meet Japanese companies during a reception party on Wednesday evening at Yokohama Bay Hotel Tokyu.

On Friday, Mr. Naomichi YAMADA, Project Manager NCP Japan of the EU-Japan Centre, gave a speech about the importance of the EU-Japan Cooperation in ICT and Internet of Things through the European Commission programme Horizon 2020. “ Thanks to the individual presentations and the constant support of interpreters, the ICT mission participants were able to attract visitors to their booth and exchange business cards with several Japanese businessmen. In addition, during their meetings with Japanese counterparts, most of them effectively used several communication techniques which they learnt during the online pre-departure briefing, organised prior to the mission.

For more information please visit: http://www.eu-japan.eu/events/ict-cluster-sme-mission

Third Country
Japan
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