Hokkaido University × Hitachi Hokkaido University Laboratory Fifth Forum 2025Building a Future for the RegionHints for Understanding and Resolving Complexity and Diversity of Regional Challenges

The Hitachi Hokkaido University Laboratory was established in 2016 as a hub for open innovation between Hokkaido University and Hitachi. With the goals of creating sustainable regional communities and resolving societal challenges that include depopulation accompanied by aging demographics and a low birthrate, the laboratory is working on symbiotic urban development in which virtuous circles are established in health, industry, and energy through collaborative creation with partners.

It is against this background that the fifth open forum was held on the main topic of “Building a Future for the Region.” Hokkaido University President Kiyohiro Houkin opened the forum and made the following comments. “Over the nine or so years since the laboratory was established, Hokkaido University and Hitachi have been working together to address issues that relate specifically to Hokkaido. Internationally, the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are currently facing a strong backlash. Nevertheless, if we are to resolve complex and multi-faceted regional challenges, bringing together the many different stakeholders involved and engaging in dialogue will be essential. It is my hope that this forum will provide hints on how to understand the complexity and diversity of regional challenges and on how to resolve them.”

Yutaka Fujii, Chairman of the Hokkaido Economic Federation, also spoke, saying that, “While Hokkaido is recognized as being at the forefront of confronting these challenges, factors such as the war in Ukraine and recent rice shortages have heightened people’s awareness of our importance as a food producer for Japan. In addition to a resurgence in tourism with the waning of the COVID pandemic, Hokkaido has also been identified as a suitable site for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. These represent great opportunities for the revitalization of Hokkaido’s economy and industry. Through this forum, I hope we can share our thinking on regional challenges and on what we can do to overcome them.”

YamamotoThe topic of this forum is “Building a Future for the Region.” For the keynote presentation, we have invited Takeshi Okada, a former manager of the Japanese national football team and currently the chairman of Imabari Yume. Sports Inc. and owner of Football Club (FC) Imabari, a professional football club based in Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture. Okada-san, could you please tell us what you hoped to accomplish in the Imabari region by leveraging the resources offered by soccer culture, including the story of how you came to the region as an outsider.

OkadaIt is now a decade since I came to Imabari. Initially, to enable the players representing Japan to succeed on the world stage, my only concern was how I could foster athletes who are able to think for themselves and play with initiative. At that time, a Spanish coach told me they have a soccer system in Spain that they teach to players up to age 16, after which the players are free to play as they please. This is the exact opposite of Japanese football, where the teaching of tactics starts from high-school age. That started me thinking that we, too, should set up a club like that. I went to see a former teammate who now ran a company in Imabari that had an amateur team in the Shikoku League. When I told him what I wanted to do, he urged me to go ahead with it, but said that we first needed to acquire 51% of the company’s shares. This is how I ended up as an owner despite not having any money (laughs). When I started out as a company manager, I chose a corporate mission of “helping to create a society for the next generation in which people value spiritual over material wealth.” This was because, given that the finite nature of the world we live in makes a scramble for resources inevitable as we all seek to grow, I believe it is vital that we pursue a path whereby a good life is attained not through physical growth that can be measured with numbers, but rather through cultural growth that cannot be expressed numerically.
There was a time early on when nothing seemed to work, no matter what I tried. I had to endure some painful words about how I did not understand how things were done at Imabari. Then, at some point, I had a realization. Even though there were six of us working together, not one of us had any friends in Imabari City. Before we could go about asking people to come and watch soccer, we needed to go and see Imabari for ourselves. Since then, we have made an effort to become part of the community. We have honestly tried everything, including setting a goal of making some friends and telling elderly people to let us know if anything was bothering them. Since then, the people who we came into contact with by doing these things have slowly started coming along to watch soccer.

YamamotoIt seems to me that all the different things you have done yourself have been a big part of this. Nevertheless, did you face some difficulties in trying to generate cash and keeping the business running while building trust at the same time?

OkadaWhile our corporate mission highlights the importance of those forms of capital that are intangible, obviously capital in its tangible form is also essential if you want to put food on the table. We need to work in practical ways if we are to fulfill our corporate mission. This is why I am very strict about business. If we get into the red, I get people thinking about what we can do to return to profitability. Instead of assuming that wet weather inevitably means fewer spectators, it is vital that you avoid taking things for granted and instead ask yourself why rain should be a problem. Is there any way you can get people to come even when it is wet?

YamamotoRather than just having a mission, it is clearly important that you establish an actual business model. What is it that you see as important when it comes to managing an organization, whether it be a company or a soccer team?

OkadaWe live at a time when capitalism has gotten bogged down, populism is rising on the back of disparities and partisanship, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is making it hard to know what is true anymore, and where we lack role models. Having no precedents for this state of affairs, we have no choice but to make up our own minds about everything. But if we do that, half of what we decide will turn out wrong. It is a time of “error and learn.” As such, the only hope left to us, I believe, is to build cooperative communities. Rather than learning ways not to fail, this means using failure as an opportunity to learn. We need to pool our capabilities, bringing together people who are able to act on their own initiative. If everyone does the same thing, a single obstacle can bring us all down. Instead, we need to build organizations in which a wide variety of people acknowledge one another. What matters most in this is to be accepting of the other people involved. You cannot expect everyone in a team of 20 to 30 people to all be on close terms with one another at the same time. However, it is vital that they acknowledge one another based on the common goal of winning the game, and that they adopt an attitude of, “While I may not get along with that person, I know that passing to them will result in a score.”

YamamotoWhile having everyone share a common goal is a prerequisite for an autonomous decentralized organization, I expect there will be cases where people differ in their values and judgements. Did you face difficulties like that in the process of building an organization?

OkadaWe had all sorts of failures (laughs). That is, we would try things or say things, then abandon them if they did not go well. People say I am quick to change my mind, but it makes sense to change quickly if you get something wrong. Leadership, or captaincy, only works if you have a selfless attitude. I believe that people rally around those who work tirelessly toward a vision or goal and take risks in pursuit of a challenge, and that this gets the organization moving in a common direction.

YamamotoRegarding what makes a leader, I expect it differs somewhat depending on the nature of the organization. Could you say a little more about what being a leader in the future will involve and about the training of leadership?

OkadaIt is by overcoming difficulties and pressure that people grow. Whereas people working for companies in Europe and America have the pressure of potentially losing their job, applying such pressure is difficult in Japan where dismissal is not a simple matter. As such, the only option is to get people to feel that way for themselves and light a fire in their hearts. Offer a hand to someone asking for help and they will fall back down again the moment you let go. If on the other hand you leave them to their own devices, about half of them will struggle desperately to clamber back up. People will never grow if they lack the desire to do so. I am also principal of FC Imabari High School and I tell our coaches (teachers) that there are three questions to ask when providing guidance to pupils. When something happens, the first question to ask the pupil is, “What is going on?” In doing so, however, the coach must not express his or her own opinion. Instead ask, “Well then, what do you want to do?” Only after this can the coach ask, “How can I help?” It is by going through this questioning process that pupils develop initiative. An open school for third-year junior high school students held in July 2024 went off very successfully by leaving everything from planning to operation up to the first cohort of pupils. By undertaking all of these different activities, a change has started to take place in the town, with people who had written Imabari off as a lost cause now getting a sense that maybe the place can change. With the government also pursuing a variety of initiatives in addition to ourselves, the town’s population has stopped shrinking and more than 3,000 new residents moved in during 2023. While activities like creating employment for young people in the regions and attracting companies to locate operations there may well be very important, I have learned that what matters more than anything else is for the existing residents to live good and vibrant lives.

YamamotoThank you. Finally, could you tell me what your hopes and expectations are for the future?

OkadaAmid a multitude of conflicts and societal challenges, it feels like the world is starting to give up and enter a state of despair. Despite this, we need to keep up our hope in the next generation. One of the programs at the Furano Shizen Juku environmental education initiative I am involved in with the playwright So Kuramoto is called Chikyu no Michi (Global Pathway). The program represents the 4.6-billion-year history of Earth over a distance of 460 m, providing commentary as you walk along. Out of this 460 m, the birth of Homo sapiens only happens in the last 2 cm. There are Native Americans who talk of the world as something borrowed from our descendants. That is, rather than inheriting the Earth from our ancestors, they speak of it as being on loan from the children who will live in the future. While today’s stock prices and economics are important, it seems to me that the answers to a variety of societal challenges become clearer when we consider what to do about the times in which our as-yet-unborn children will live.

Japan is seen as a nation with aging demographics and a low birthrate. Given that so many people have wanted to live a long life, however, in the sense that it represents the realization of this desire, this aging of the population is by no means a bad thing. In this regard, it is the low birthrate that represents the greater problem. When you compare birthrates by age group in 1975 with those in 2015, the proportion of women who give birth in their 20s, once the predominant childbearing years, has fallen below half. For those ages 30 and above, however, the proportion has actually increased. Looking solely at women with a spouse, the proportion giving birth has not changed for those in their 20s and has risen for older age groups. This tells us that the major impact is coming from the tendency to marry later or not at all. While a low birthrate inevitably leads to a smaller working-age cohort, which should result in fewer workers, the actual workforce has not shrunk at all. The difference is being made up by the elderly and women. Unfortunately, if you fail to create a society in which women can combine a family and a career, their only option is to choose not to marry or, if they do marry, to not bear children. In the future, it will be more important than ever to find ways for people to work efficiently despite constraints on both time and the number of workers available.

The concentration of the population in large cities is another issue. Densely concentrated populations bring higher housing prices, diminishing people’s motivation to marry and have children while also raising risks during a disaster. Moreover, when the demographics of such metropolitan areas eventually ages, it causes depopulation in the regions by creating a vicious circle in which younger people are drawn in to support them. When this happens, it drives up the cost of public infrastructure such as transportation, electricity, and water in such regions. This imbalance poses a major problem. When it comes to people’s health, meanwhile, it has been found that people who are engaged with their communities live more healthy lives and retain their faculties. How to build those connections becomes a problem, however, when the population of a community shrinks.

With the accelerating progress of science and technology, however, we now live in a time when both adults and children carry smartphones. While problems of generational disparity still exist, a wide variety of possibilities are opening up through the use of digital technology to overcome the obstacles of distance and to connect people who are physically separated from one another. If technologies such as AI help us work more efficiently, it may be that we will be able to use the time this frees up to engage more closely with other people and find more fulfilling lives for ourselves.

The question of how to enable the children who will make up future generations to enjoy spiritually enriched lives is a major challenge for our time. At Hokkaido University, we have launched a co-creation hub that brings people from different generations together for the design of systems for a sustainable and unconstrained society. The goal is to build a society in which people can live well and enjoy a vibrant way of life. As we work to unravel the diverse lifestyles and challenges found in different parts of Hokkaido, I hope that we can give more thought to what we are able to accomplish.

Since it was opened in 2016, the Hitachi Hokkaido University Laboratory has sought to build relationships of trust with local communities and establish a platform for addressing regional challenges. Building on a collaboration with Iwamizawa City, this has involved research and development work based around the two topics of “healthcare and health” and “mathematical optimization.”

Today, I will be presenting details of some of the field trials undertaken by the Hitachi Hokkaido University Laboratory.

1. Initiative for reducing the number of underweight newborns
   Having verified the correlation between intestinal proteins and the diversity of intestinal flora, we have developed a simple measurement technique that can shorten testing times to one-fourth of what they used to be. This knowledge has been incorporated into an integrated platform for managing people’s health data across their life stages. By doing so, and by using this to indicate the health of pregnant women and to provide feedback on things like their nutritional condition, we have also succeeded in reducing the percentage of underweight newborns in Iwamizawa City from 10.4% to 6.3%. We are now working to reduce costs and improve the model, having entered into a four-party contract in October of last year to pursue a similar initiative. Our partners in this work include Kitahiroshima City and Hokkaido University.
2. Local energy initiative
   A trial site for a nanogrid that facilitates the local generation and local consumption of energy has been built in Iwamizawa City. This involves the use of locally produced energy from sources such as photovoltaic panels and hot-springs gas for agriculture, homes, and disaster prevention. Batteries are charged at a charging center and then distributed to farms located around the area where they are used to power agricultural machinery and to reduce farms’ peak electricity demand (peak cutting). We are working on the optimization of battery delivery routes and a variety of other improvements to increase battery utilization and reduce equipment cost.

NTT EAST, Inc. is promoting the collaborative creation of locally based economies. The company sees itself as a social innovation partner, utilizing assets such as telecommunication business expertise, services, and equipment acquired from its regional operations to act as an enabler, consulting with communities about their hopes and challenges and seeking ways of resolving them.

In agriculture, for example, we have established NTT AgriTechnology Corporation to familiarize ourselves with concerns and issues faced by farmers, of which we would be unaware were we merely a facilitator, and to devise practical solutions to these challenges. This has involved getting dozens of our young staff actively involved in farm work whereby they trial the use of information and communication technology (ICT) devices to improve productivity while participating in lettuce or tomato growing. We have also engaged in a variety of other activities, including the digitalization of roading records for preventive maintenance of infrastructure, the use of AI speakers in care for the elderly, and the establishment of Hokkaido Open Platform (HOP), a digital community that links relevant people from industry, government, and academia together with business people from venture companies.

Hokkaido is an area with great potential. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Hokkaido supports the entire country, something that becomes evident when you consider food self-sufficiency or its scope for generating renewable energy. With factors such as international conflict driving concerns about economic security, we believe that to protect the productive capabilities of Hokkaido is to protect Japan as a whole.

In addition to nationwide issues such as aging demographics and a low birthrate, a challenge specific to Hokkaido is that its agriculture, aquiculture, forestry, and energy resources are spread across a wide land area. As a telecommunications operator, our desire is to use the power of networks to shrink distances through the sharing of resources between areas in tandem with ongoing area-by-area digital transformation (DX).

To this end, we are considering the construction of networks that use Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) technology. We are currently partnering with international organizations to standardize this technology. It offers dramatic performance improvements over the conventional telecommunications currently in use, with a 125-fold increase in transmission capacity and 200-fold improvement in latency, enabling real-time communications with high throughput while minimizing power consumption. Having undertaken trials in partnership with relevant institutions including the Hokkaido Prefectural Government and Hokkaido University, we are now looking at a wide-area rollout of IOWN in the Hokkaido Valley^*1 area. A future of regional development with remote operation of equipment and where people in the regions can receive education at the same level as if they were in Sapporo, ... this is the sort of future we want to be a part of building.

MaruyamaHitachi has been putting an effort into design for more than seventy years, from the 1950s to the present day. Along with product design and graphics design, this has involved augmenting our designs with ideas of usability that come from ergonomics and information engineering. Over the past 20 years or so, we have also been paying attention to the design of customer value and experiences. Today, we have invited Atsuhiro Kondo and Ken Kobayashi to talk about the resolution of societal challenges and the value of design in business. Mr. Kondo works for Morita Corporation, a company with operations that include paper packaging, and is employed in a role that has design at its heart. Mr. Kobayashi, meanwhile, is from Fighters Sports & Entertainment Co., Ltd., a company involved in the Hokkaido Ballpark F Village^*2 urban development project at Kitahiroshima City in Hokkaido. Could you start by telling us some of your experiences regarding how design can play a part in resolving the societal challenges facing communities?

KondoI run a small urban factory in the Shiroishi Ward of Sapporo City that produces cardboard boxes and packaging. I used to think of design as something undertaken by esoteric artists and belonging to a completely different world. Deciding that this was an outlook I needed to change, I enrolled myself in design school. By doing so, I realized that it was design itself that changes perspectives. This has left me with a sense that, by putting myself in touch with a wide variety of designers, the result has been an increase in the value added by the company.

KobayashiThe Hokkaido Ballpark catchphrase is urban development based on sport. While baseball obviously plays a central role, it occurred to me when I looked at pre-construction design drawings for Hokkaido Ballpark that the project is one that will appeal to more than just baseball fans. One feature of the area is that it contains a mix of both every-day and non-every-day functions, including condominiums and facilities for glamping, childcare with on-site day-care, and agricultural training. Kitahiroshima City is a place rich in nature that is located midway between Sapporo and New Chitose Airport and offers easy access to both. Early on, however, I was struck by the difference in perception between locals and outsiders, with a lot of local people asking us why we were building Hokkaido Ballpark in a place they thought of as a mere waystation to somewhere else. Since we have opened, however, we have been getting more than four million visitors annually made up of both tourists and locals.

MaruyamaI expect that a sense of initiative, leadership, and captaincy are needed when trying to put design to work in the resolution of societal challenges. What are your thoughts on this?

KondoFor a small urban factory to survive, it is important that it clearly differentiate itself and generate a high level of added value. This is what led us to start making our V-cut cardboard boxes. This involves making cardboard boxes using a technique typically used for wooden boxes. The finished products convey a strong sense of quality. We then went on to hold the HAKOMART event involving communication with designers I came to know through design school. This had the designers dreaming up their own box designs which we then made for real and presented at an exhibition, gaining a lot of publicity for us in the process. However, the best outcome of the event, I believe, has been the improvements it brought in product quality by inspiring a desire among factory staff to come up with more creative products. These were staff who had previously been content to make the products they had been told to make. We have also chosen Milkraft*³ as the brand mark for our V-cut cardboard boxes to make customers aware that they are manufactured from recycled milk carton paper.

KobayashiHokkaido Ballpark has a lot of facilities and events for children. Children in Hokkaido are somewhat conservative by nature, a consequence of the conservatism of their parents. Something I have noticed when out and about is an atmosphere in which adults stifle children, where children wanting to do something are held back by their parents. That is why, when I returned to Hokkaido, I wanted to get across the idea of what might be possible if adults got fully engaged. Also to put this idea to others and create value through collaboration with other industries. One example is Kubota Agri Front, an agriculture training facility established through a three-way partnership between Hokkaido University, Kubota Corporation, and Hokkaido’s Nippon-Ham Fighters baseball team, and how it became a flagship project at Hokkaido Ballpark.

MaruyamaFinally, could you tell me what you yourself think of as “new value”?

KondoEzomatsu-Craft^*3 is a product developed by Morita. This is a Hokkaido paper made by taking wood offcuts from sawmills and converting them into sawdust that is then coated on paper. By expressing the essence of Hokkaido in packaging, it combines our own growth with contribution to the community. The high regard in which Ezomatsu-Craft paper is held has led to our receiving high-end work from around the country. Our next target is overseas. In fact, we already have an order for wine boxes from California in the USA and this January we exhibited at a trade show in France. Given the size of our company, this is something on which we are staking our future and I am looking forward to bringing work from around the world to Sapporo though high-end products. In time, I also want to make us into an open factory that can welcome the world’s creators.

KobayashiHokkaido Ballpark is still only three to four tenths along the way to completion. Out of a desire to move forward in partnership with the local people, we are pursuing initiatives for transforming the town by coming up with ideas for making it more attractive, painting pictures, and turning these into a single emblem. Having the university relocate here in 2028, building high-rise condominiums, increasing visitor numbers from four to seven million annually, ... these are the sort of plans we have in mind.

MaruyamaDesign, or to put it another way, leadership, initiative, and creativity, are essential to resolving challenges in societies beset by uncertainty. They foster empathy with the people around us, creating a world that transcends our preconceptions and giving rise to new markets. I believe you have helped to show us how this can be accomplished. Thank you for your time today.

The closing address was given by Asako Koike, General Manager of the Technology Strategy Office at the Research & Development Group of Hitachi, Ltd. After recounting the day’s program and expressing thanks to the presenters and audience, she also made the following comments about the work of the Hitachi Hokkaido University Laboratory and the prospects for the future.

“I have learned much from today’s forum through discussions that have brought the perspectives of academia, business, and local government into alignment. Amid accelerating changes in society itself, such as the loss of momentum by GX and DEI, our conception of what constitutes a problem is also evolving. Despite this, it is important that we adopt a wide variety of approaches to the resolution of societal challenges, including becoming personally invested in the issues, helping both ourselves and one another, and technology and design. I also believe that education will become vitally important as a foundation of captaincy and human capabilities. In the future, I hope we can continue to take on even greater societal challenges through collaboration between companies and local government as well as universities in their role as educational institutions.”