Speakers

Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurship
Faculty Director, Inspire Studio
Academic Director Babson Academy

Heidi Neck

Neck has been recognized for teaching excellence at Babson for undergraduate, graduate, and executive education. She has also been recognized by international organizations, the Academy of Management and USASBE, for excellence in pedagogy and course design. For pushing the frontiers of entrepreneurship education in higher education, The Schulze Foundation and the Entrepreneur and Innovation Exchange (EIX) awarded her Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2016. She was again awarded "Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year" in 2022 by USASBE for her distinguished leadership in, and impact on, entrepreneurship education. (From Babson College website)

Governor

Hidehiko Yuzaki

Hidehiko Yuzaki has been the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture since 2009. He received his Bachelor in Law degree from the University of Tokyo in 1990, and his MBA from Stanford University in 1995. He served in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry between 1990 and 2000. He was founder and Representative Director of ACCA Networks, leaving the company as Executive Vice-President and Representative Director in 2008.

Kazuo Yano

Kazuo Yano is the Fellow, Hitachi Ltd, and CEO, Happiness Planet Ltd. He is known for the pioneering works in the world-first room-temperature single-electron memories. He has pioneered the measurement and analysis of social big data. He and coworkers have succeeded quantifying the happiness of people from unconscious physical motion and has founded "Happiness Planet, Ltd" in 2020 for enhancing happiness and psychological capital through technology. He has provided keynote speeches on data for happiness worldwide. He has applied over 350 patents and his papers are cited by over 4500 papers. His book, "The Invisible Hand of Data," is cited as one of top-10 business books in Japan in 2014.
He received 2020 IEEE Frederik Phillips Award and many other international awards. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Associate Professor

Michiko Ashizawa

Since 2013, she has been consistently involved in entrepreneurship education as an associate professor at Yokohama City University. Founders of StockBase Inc. were students of her classes. She continues to support several entrepreneurs around Yokohama City. Her research interest is the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Japan and has been actively making policy recommendations to the City of Yokohama since 2018. She led the establishment of “YOXO College”, a partnership between four universities in Yokohama and the City of Yokohama.
Before moving to Yokohama City University, she worked as a practitioner for more than ten years. She engaged in accounting audit as a CPA at KPMG and corporate revitalization projects at Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) and Advantage Partners. She graduated from Keio University with a Ph.D. in Management and an MBA. She also serves as an outside director of three listed companies and a member of various committees in Japan Government and Yokohama City.

CEO of Colabolabo Co., Ltd／Visiting associate Professor (Ochanomizu University)

Kyoko Yokota

Kyoko Yokota is the Chief Executive Officer of Colabolabo Co., Ltd based in Tokyo, Japan.
Born in Sydney to Japanese expatriate parents, she was raised in Osaka. She is in charge of organizing the entrepreneurship programs in Ochanomizu University for the past 10 years.
Colabolabo provides business support for female entrepreneurs, with more than 3,000 clients all over Japan. It manages a website, “Women Presidents.net”, https://joseishacho.net/ where a database of female entrepreneurs is made available to whoever is interested in their businesses.
Prior to setting up her own business in 2006, Kyoko had over 6 years of experience working for the human resources department of Recruit Co., Ltd., a leading advertising, publishing and HR company in Japan. Kyoko received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Ochanomizu University, one of the oldest national women's universities in Japan.
She is also involved in several committees, including a committee established by the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. She was selected to represent Japan at the APEC 2011 WES (Women and the Economy Summit) as one of the “Innovators of Japan.”

Simona Zollet

Simona Zollet received a Masters’ degree in Environmental Science and Sustainable Development from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, and a PhD in International Development and Cooperation from Hiroshima University, under the TAOYAKA Leading Graduate School Program. She is now Assistant Professor at Hiroshima University and a 2021/2022 USASBE (US Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship) Rural Research Fellow. She is interested in the sustainability and revitalization of rural areas through new approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation in farming and rural living. Her research includes two main overlapping areas of inquiry. The first pertains to the development of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems and clusters in Italy and Japan centered around sustainable food and farming, and their connection to the social, ecological and economic sustainability of marginal rural areas. A connected research topic is that of urban-to-rural lifestyle migrants seeking more sustainable and fulfilling lifestyles through small scale entrepreneurship. Simona will also be an instructor for the USASBE's Rural Entrepreneurship Education Certification" program in July 2022.

Professor

Mikiko Shimaoka

Head of the secretariat for the WASEDA-EDGE development program, and a core member of the SCORE program's "Tokyo United Network for Innovation with Technology and Entrepreneurs (T-UNITE)" and the START Program's Greater Tokyo Innovation Ecosystem (GTIE). Certified coach, Foundation of Global Life Learning Center. Her work incorporates coaching into entrepreneurship education. She also uses design thinking for teaching. She is author of "Entrepreneurship education at Waseda University, Japan: challenges in integrating entrepreneurship education programs across universities and beyond" in Innovation in Global Entrepreneurship Education: Teaching Entrepreneurship in Practice, edited by Heidi M. Neck and Jeffry A. Timmons, Edward Elgar(2020), and "Innovations in "ba" at Waseda University" in Innovations in "ba," Chuokeizai-sha (2018) among others.

CEO, Founder

Maco Yoshioka

Having completed the succession process of Madre Bonita after 22 years of supporting postpartum women, Yoshioka founded another non-profit called Single Mothers' Sisterhood supporting single mothers’ physical and mental well-being through online self-care classes. What Yoshioka values in this organization is not only to protect and help, but also to believe that single mothers have their own strengths and encourage them to use them to help themselves and sometimes others. (Edited from LinkedIn profile)

CEO, Founder

Yuriko Kato

Yuriko Kato studied and researched agricultural systems at the University of Tokyo's Department of Agriculture, and received a master's degree from Cranfield University, UK. She then worked on a NASA project in the US researching vegetable production for the international space station. After returning to Japan, she joined Canon and worked in the SOC team. She moved to Shizuoka after getting married, doing R&D for industrial machines but then realized the importance of the social aspect of farming and founded m2labo, Inc. During the first two years, as she worked with local farmers on prefecture subsidized projects, she noticed the unhappy and fragmented state of distribution in farming, and set about developing a business around these issues. She launched "Vegiprovider," a scheme inter-connecting the people who make, use and eat food throughout the distribution process. A system for sharing logistics and physical distribution was added, and a new company, Yasai Bus (Vegibus) was founded in 2017 to facilitate the updated business model. In 2018, she founded the Glocal Design School (Agriculture x Education) that nurtures future challengers. Yasai Bus was awarded the Prime Minister's Grand Prix for creative innovation at ACC2019. Kato received the Women's Challenge Award from the Cabinet Office's Gender Equality Bureau in 2021.

Co-Founder and CEO

Ayaka Nagashima

She develops a business focusing on a calming atmosphere that helps improve well-being by working with artists and scientists for hotels, residences, events and so on. The flagship project is an immersive meditation studio in Tokyo. It provides a unique style of meditation which combines art and Japanese tea, to detox your whole being by giving all your senses a luxurious treatment.

University Research Administrator, Academic Research & Industry-academia- government collaboration

Sawako Tanaka

Currently since 2017, I am mainly in charge of the international part of the Tongali (Tokai Network for Global Leading Innovators) project, which is an entrepreneurship education project in the Tokai region. I hold a M.Sc. in Environmental Science from Wageningen University. Previously, I worked as a coordinator of an environmental monitoring project called AsiaFlux at the National Institute for Environmental Studies Japan, environmental project officer at UNDP Mauritius, and a research fellow at the World Forestry Center in USA.

General Manager

Miki Watanabe

After moving around China and Japan during her childhood years, Miki settled in the U.S. for high school, then on to the University of Michigan for a degree in Business Administration. She was involved in the Entrepreneurship program at Michigan where she founded a small recycled-art business which she then sold. Prior to HAX, Miki spent 3 years as a consultant with McKinsey in Chicago, Tokyo and Ethiopia serving corporate and public sector clients on growth and innovation related topics. Miki is trilingual, she speaks Japanese, Chinese and English. She is a Taekwondo Red-Black belt, snowboarder, surfer, and avid traveler.

Vice Director, Startup Initiatives

Yukiko Konishi

Bachelor Degree in Economics from Osaka University. MBA, Waseda University. Worked at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (currently Mizuho Bank) Research Institute, was a trainee for Japan Center for Economic Research, and assistant at Waseda University's graduate school of commerce prior to taking her current position in 2019. MBA, UC Riverside and University of Hawaii at Manoa, visiting fellow, Corvinus University of Budapest. Working for the entrepreneurship development project in the Tokai region, "Tongali."

Co-Founder / Co-Partner

Hideyuki Inoue

Co-founder, Stanford Social Innovation Review Japan. Co-Representative, INNO-Lab International。Graduated from Keio University, then studied in the graduate program of George Washington University. After working in an international consulting firm, joined the NPO, ETIC. Launched Japan's first business plan contest for social ventures, "STYLE" to help develop aspiring, young, social entrepreneurs. In 2003, founded an investment organization for social entrepreneurs, Social Venture Partners (SVP) Tokyo. Starting in 2003, began developing and delivering courses grounded in the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship. The project-based learning method "My Project" emerged from these courses, which has since been used at high schools throughout Japan and also for adult learning programs. Selected as a Young Global Leader by the 2009 World Economic Forum. Most recently, has been inolved in leadership development combining mindfulness and social innovation. One of his recent papers include "Collective Impact in Practice" published in the Diamond Harvard Business Review's February issue, 2019.

Director

Takaaki Umada

After working at Microsoft Japan, he joined the University of Tokyo in 2016. At the University of Tokyo, he started and ran Hongo Tech Garage, and since 2019, he have been working as FoundX Director, supporting startups and teaching entrepreneurship. He provides information through slides and blogs for startups. He is the author of "Paradoxical Startup Thinking," "Successful Entrepreneurs Choose Where to Stay," and "Implementing the Future.”

Representative Chairperson / Chairperson

Naoko Oshima

1982 Born in Osaka. 2006 Graduated from Shiga Prefectural University with a major in Life Design/Architecture. Started working for OAK VILLAGE (Architecture firm/Furniture Workshop) Co., Ltd. 2011 Moved to Nishiawakura Village, Okayama Prefecture. 2013 Founded the Architecture Department at Youbi to address many challenges of the Japanese forestry industry. Since learning about them in her teens, it has become one of her life works to open a new path of using domestic timber both in room space and products. 2016 Faced the destruction of the Youbi workshop/office by fire. Redesigned and constructed the building with volunteers from across Japan. Her strength is to find out the “real needs” of a person/company through dialogue and weave them into the final designs/projects. Started consulting, team building and project directing. July 2020, founded Nishiawakura Muramarugoto Local Invention Lab General Incorporated Foundation with the Nishiawakura Village Office. Based on the theme of revitalizing rural areas with technology, connect companies with the local areas and launch new projects and test their applicability to the area. Hobby: Eat and travel. Words to live by: Even a small amount of power can make a difference.

Dean of the Department of Social System Design and Professor, Eikei University of Hiroshima
Guest Professor, Graduate School of System Design and Management, Keio University

Toshiyuki Yasui

After graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1985, Dr. Yasui joined in the Ministry of Finance, the Government of Japan and achieved distinguished services for 35 years in that Ministry and also in the Financial Services Agency. He served as member of the board of REVIC, the government-affiliated sovereign wealth funds of Japan, and represented Japan and other five countries at the Inter-American Development Bank, an international financial institution for Latin America and Caribbean Region. He has been teaching at Graduate School of System Design and Management, Keio University since its establishment in 2008. He earned Ph.D. from the International Christian University. He is a certified Project Management Professional of the US Project Management Institute.
Since April 2021 Toshiyuki has assumed the first-ever Dean of the Department of Social System Design (SSD) of Eikei University of Hiroshima, which is one and only SSD Department in Japan. He is a member of the board of the Japan Association of Regional Development and Vitalization (JARDV) cum editor-in-chief of the JARDV Journal. He is member of council of the Japan Creativity Society.
His research interests include social system design, social innovation, subjective well-being, finance, public policy, dialogue theory and regional revitalization.

Professor, Entrepreneurship

Rene Mauer

René Mauer holds the Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at ESCP Europe, Berlin campus. He is the academic head of the Executive Master in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership (EMDIEL), of the MIM specialization in entrepreneurship (Option E) on the Berlin campus, and he also shares the academic lead of U-School, the entrepreneurial leadership certificate programme for executives at ESCP Europe. His area of expertise is entrepreneurial decision-making in venture and corporate contexts. In practice projects he has been working together with SMEs and larger companies such as BASF, BMW, Deutsche Post DHL or P&G. René has worked for 3M, in start-ups and in management consulting. He co-owns a family business, co-founded a technology-start-up and was involved in a variety of other venture projects, one of which is the expert network Effectuation Intelligence that he is a partner of.

Partner

Michael Faschingbauer

Michael Faschingbauer is a consultant, lecturer and speaker operating out of Graz (Austria). Field- and management experience in the automotive industry (1989-2001). Pioneer in transferring effectuation (entrepreneurial expertise, sarasvathy 2001) into various areas of professional action under uncertainty. Michael is co-founder of the web-platform "Effectuation Forschung & Praxis" (www.effectuation.at |.ch|.de) and author of "Effectuation: Wie erfolgreiche Unternehmer denken, entscheiden und handeln; Schäffer-Poeschel", a practitioner´s reference to effectuation in German language awarded "Managementbook of the year" and now available in it´s 3rd edition.

Founder & Managing Director

Masato Iino

Following derivative trading at a bank and M&A/venture investment at General Electric, he participated in the foundation of four startups since 2000 of which he exited one. He worked for a venture capital as a partner for 10 years before starting an independent firm to deploy Lean Startup and invest in the startups practicing Lean Startup. His interest is in increasing innovation by improving the probability of success of innovation by methods/process. He is a founder/managing director of ScaleOut Corp, a partner of XVC, a venture capital , focusing on very early stage startups, and a director of Japan Effectuation Association, Visiting Professor at Waseda University. BA in Law, University of Tokyo, MBA, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Professor

Yuriko Sawatani

Yuriko Sawatani is a Professor at Business School, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, and Director at Entrepreneurship Center. She received her Ph.D. at The University of Tokyo. After working at IBM Research, she received a professor position at Waseda University in 2013 and has the current position since April 2018. She works in partnership with companies, transforming organizations into the digital era. Current work includes MEXT Enhancing Development of Global Entrepreneur Program and its follow-on program. Her research investigates the design function of companies focusing on Service Design, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship.

Associate Professor

Mari Yoshida

Mari Yoshida is the associate professor of marketing in Graduate School of Business Administration at Kobe University. She completed her Ph.D. at Kobe University, researching on marketing behavior and creation of new product market. She wrote several books related to marketing management and translated professor Sarasvathy’s book Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009) into Japanese.

Acting General Manager

Hiroki Hinoura

Hiroki Hinoura graduated from the Graduate School of Osaka Prefecture University with a Master's degree in Intelligence and Information Engineering.
After he joined LTS in 2014, he has been engaged in consulting projects from initiation to definition, design, development, and implementation for ERP of general trading companies.
Also, he has assumed PMO for digital strategy and consulted using RPA for manufacturing companies.
In 2018, he was transferred to a strategic consulting firm, where he was involved in producing industries oriented to solving social issues and structuring one of the largest social impact bonds in Japan. He has been involved in the establishment of general incorporated associations and funds, and has experience in designing schemes that involve companies, local governments, and organizations.
As a member of SVP Tokyo Partner (NPO), he has also worked with social ventures and NPOs.

COO

Yushi Hoshiyama

In 2011, Yushi Hoshiyama founded Wakuto Co., Ltd. which mainly provides software development. He appointed Director of IT in Hiroshima and served as President of Wakuto in 2018; retired in 2021.
In 2019, Wakuto formed a capital alliance with LTS Co., Ltd. and he assumed the position of Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) in October of the same year. He also appointed Senior Consultant for Alliances at LTS Corporation (in charge of M&A of LTS Group). LTS and Wakuto supported entrepreneurs based on effectuation in Hiroshima Sandbox "RINGHIROSHIMA".

Jin Suzuki

Susumu Takase

Nobuhiko Hibara

Associate Professor

Emi Makino

Conference Steering Committee Chair. Emi Makino has been teaching and directing entrepreneurship programs for nearly nine years at universities throughout Japan including Kyushu University and Tokyo University of Science. After graduating from Columbia University's journalism school, she began her career as a newspaper reporter in New York City covering business and financial markets for Japan's Nikkei in the mid-90s. She interviewed many of the pioneering entrepreneurs of the internet economy. Back in Japan, she built up an interpreting practice specializing in high-level business meetings and management crises. In 2008, she moved her family to Los Angeles to pursue an MBA and PhD in management at Claremont Graduate University. Author of Innovation Makers: How Campus Makerspaces Can Empower Students to Change the World.