In anticipation of the time when disposable plastic shopping bags are bought, rather than provided for free, efforts to develop biodegradable, disposable shopping bags have recently gained momentum.

Conventional plastics do not break down when disposed of; they remain in the environment until they are properly processed. Biodegradable plastics can, over time, be turned into water and carbon dioxide by microorganisms. If plastics feature marine biodegradability, they can greatly reduce the environmental impact on oceans and waterways.

Toppan Printing Co. and GSI Creos Corp., a major synthetic fiber manufacturer, have teamed up to develop such biodegradable products. Some of these products include shopping bags, trash bags and cutlery. The companies plan to supply these products to convenience stores in the future, after overcoming remaining hurdles such as cost reduction.

They also plan to expand the scope of uses for the manufacturing technology acquired through this joint development project, aiming to use it to manufacture film items and molded products.

Top company making inroads

Fukusuke Kogyo Co., in Shikokuchuo, Ehime Prefecture, is Japan’s largest manufacturer of disposable plastic shopping bags. The company stands to suffer as demand for such bags is expected to decrease when they cease to be free.

To counter this, the company has developed a shopping bag that is biodegradable in the ocean. The product uses a biodegradable resin derived from various materials, including corn. The bag is said to be the first of its kind in the world that can carry up to 8 kilograms, a standard that conventional counterparts are typically required to carry, and can be mass produced.

Takeuchi: What kind of boy were you when you were young?

Nishikawa: I became interested in PCs around the fourth grade. My father had an introductory book on (the programming language) BASIC. I picked it up and I was immediately hooked. My parents wouldn’t buy me a PC, so I would play around with source code on a piece of paper.

After I got my own PC, I spent days programming. Then, I gradually became curious about the more fundamental aspects of computing, not just programming — like how computers work in the first place? From there, my interest grew in the direction of networks and hardware. I didn’t think twice about joining the Hiraki lab (professor Kei Hiraki’s lab at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology).

Takeuchi: It’s an interesting lab. I hear the professor still visits your company.

Nishikawa: Yes, he does. Actually, he works for us full time.

Takeuchi: So, you asked him to join PFN?

Nishikawa: No, he first told me he wanted to talk about something and visited our office. Until then, he had advised us on analogue aspects, like the handling of processor boards and high frequencies and things like that.

One day, he told us he wanted to develop a supercomputer with PFN. He now gives lectures to our members once a month or so.

Takeuchi: Am I correct in remembering that you met (PFN co-founder and Vice President Daisuke) Okanohara in college?

Nishikawa: Correct. We were in the same class in the first year, and our relationship has continued to this day.

He said he wanted to run an application on a search engine he developed through the MITOU Program. While I helped him with that, we started discussing our dream of creating a sophisticated search engine and launching a business around it.

Takeuchi: So, that led you to establish (PFN predecessor) Preferred Infrastructure (PFI), right? I understand you launched the business when you were in graduate school. What were your career plans at the time?

Nishikawa: At the time, I was interested in IBM or Intel. While I was working part-time for a bio startup, this experience helped me realize it was possible to work with a small team that enabled me to do and approach things I wanted to in ways I liked. That’s why I decided to start a company, but I had little funding. Starting a company wouldn’t have been possible without MITOU’s support.

Support in early years

Takeuchi: So, the business took off smoothly?

Nishikawa: No, not at all. The founding members were all engineers. We had zero knowledge about making money, let alone how to establish a company.

That’s where MITOU’s support proved helpful. The program referred us to experts who could give us advice about things involved in starting a company, like legal, financial or intellectual property matters. An accounting firm that helped us back in those days is still doing some work for us.

Takeuchi: It’s been 10 years since we last had time for this kind of discussion. Your company has grown so much during this period, hasn’t it?

Nishikawa: Fourteen years ago, Preferred Infrastructure — now PFN — was created by six people, including team members from an international programming competition, as well as my university friends.

We established PFN in 2014 to take advantage of our real-time machine learning technology that focused on the “internet of things.” We are now fortunate enough to have about 300 employees.

Takeuchi: Wow, six of you started the company and it now has 300 employees. That’s impressive. (PFN co-founder and Vice President Daisuke) Okanohara was in MITOU. Do any other former MITOU participants belong to your company?

Nishikawa: We have at least 13 MITOU “graduates.”

Takeuchi: I think that may be the largest number of MITOU graduates now working for a single Japanese company. You have grown the company through identifying outstanding individuals and putting them together as a working team. I think that deserves praise.

I’ve been involved in MITOU as senior project manager. I notice many applicants mention they “did an internship at PFN.” What does it take to successfully join your company?

Nishikawa: First of all, we look for someone who is knowledgeable about computer science. We are divided over whether we should give a coding exam to applicants, but in my opinion, we should. That’s because I think it’s important to find out not only whether a candidate understands theory, but also if they can also practically apply said theory.

For applicants who interned with us over a two-month period, we review how they performed during their internship to find out how they identified issues and how they addressed challenges.

Responding to such social transformation, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) launched the Educational Industry Office in 2017. As the ministry oversees the private education industry, including cram schools and lessons outside of school, it has since promoted efforts to spur innovation, including ed tech, created by private sector parties for schools to seek new platforms of education.

This ministerial effort was collectively named the Learning Innovation Project, with three pillars being promoted across the country. These pillars are self-driven and individually optimized learning; STEAM-based learning approach; and new educational environment development. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Specifically, experimental programs have been conducted at schools utilizing ed tech to effectively introduce knowledge of school subjects and expertise — which would create spare time — and then holding STEAM-based lessons using this extra time. Placing curiosity and excitement of children at their core, these projects seek to circulate the act of “learning” obtained from input and that of “creation” based on STEAM-focused sessions.

For instance, an elementary school in Shizuoka Prefecture is working to incorporate ed tech into a math class — a part of the learning process — and holds STEAM-based lessons on tag rugby and programming — a part of the creation process — for its sixth-grade students.

By making use of ed tech, the former has achieved learning styles better suited for each student while simultaneously having appropriate instructions from teachers and students teaching each other. In the end, this effort aims to both streamline learning and deepen understanding among individual students.

Developing STEAM-based study materials themed on tag rugby and programming, the latter effort sets out to enable students to learn the physical coordination needed for tag rugby and at the same time express how to move their body in an electronic sense, utilizing knowledge of programming.

These programs eventually pursue the acquisition of the ability to set assignments, which in this case is connected with covering fractions and proportions in math, and the students’ ability to solve problems by themselves.

Furthermore, METI has co-organized campaigns with municipalities and other relevant parties across the country for the Learning Innovation Project in a bid to disseminate, facilitate understanding and promote the introduction of ed tech and STEAM-based education.

These efforts surely offer officials of municipal governments and local education boards, teachers, parents and students opportunities to get to know ed tech and STEAM-focused programs in person. They are also expected to help them realize the learning effect potential of ed tech, which would obviously boost the introduction and spread of this concept.

How do you view Japan’s strengths and where it stands now globally at a time when countries, led by the United States and China, are engaging in fierce competition to be innovative?

Kajiwara: I feel that common values and ethics in Japan have been re-evaluated by various industries. Meticulous service represented by the spirit of omotenashi (traditional Japanese hospitality) and an orientation toward development that tries to grasp customer needs are just some examples. Building on such Japanese strengths, companies are working to create new values.

I get the impression that the national industrial technology policy has provided across-the-board support. It routinely spans various fields and covers a wide variety of spheres from seed research to societal implementation. I think it’s time to promote in-depth discussion on which direction Japan is aiming for.

Sasaki: As I’m engaged in biological science, a field of basic research, I sometimes feel out of place. This is because discussions surrounding innovation tend to focus on so-called exit strategies. Professors who have received Nobel prizes uniformly refer to the importance of basic research. Like them, I feel a sense of impending crisis regarding the current situation in which expenditure on basic research is sluggish, and there is a shortage of positions for researchers.

However, compared to other countries, including the U.S. and China, where national government initiatives see a concentration of policy resources devoted to high-tech industries and competitive fields, there remains space in Japan for basic research that is not constrained by the end-product. It’s very difficult to restore environments for basic research once their foundation is lost. I think Japan should turn its unique environment into a strength.

Komiya: Right. These days we often hear discussions surrounding the lack of understanding of basic research, in which it is difficult to see how it works, and its benefits.

Sasaki: The works of Osamu Shimomura, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for research into green fluorescent protein developed from jellyfish (Aequorea victoria), and Yoshinori Ohsumi, recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on autophagy (the process of removing unnecessary proteins within a cell), were considered interesting from a biological phenomenon viewpoint. But people were not sure of the studies’ real value until it was discovered how such research could be applied.

Diversity, inclusion as drivers

Kajiwara: I believe the driving force behind innovation is diversity and inclusion.

Sasaki: Nagoya University has an open and vigorous atmosphere to proactively promote women and young researchers, thus I feel we are blessed with an environment to take on challenges.

The Division of Biological Science to which I belong has succeeded in increasing the ratio of its female faculty by around 30 percent over the past 10 years. Launched in 2013, the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules, where I’m engaged in research, was previously selected as a World Premier International Research Center Initiative by the education ministry. The average age of the center’s original, core members was roughly 40 years.

Future prediction keys

Kajiwara: I’m sure collaboration among different fields and integration with foreign elements are keys for innovation. This can also apply to organizational management and operations, let alone the frontlines of cutting-edge research and development.

The reason I place emphasis on diversity, especially inclusion, is a belief that the seeds of innovation occur in an environment where people respect each other, recognizing any differences and developing empathy, rather than people with different backgrounds and values just getting together. Whether it is possible to foster such an environment is a common task for the industrial and academic communities.

Tokuhiro: The promotion of diversity in research and development in Japan is an essential issue to address, given the low ratio of female researchers compared to other countries. I personally think we might as well come up with policies to ensure a certain ratio of female participation in some national research and development projects.

From the perspective of technology and innovation, there are many cases where the country’s systems, including strict quotas, and the applications and operations of such systems at universities do not adequately address technological progress and the nurturing of new personnel. So, I feel it’s increasingly essential for deregulation and to facilitate environments reflecting actual situations.

Sasaki: Nagoya University has promoted efforts to give students from different fields opportunities to consider joint research, allowing them to gain funding for successful proposals. The Principal Investigator, who supervises laboratories, judges the presentations. Judging criteria include whether the proposal crosses over different study areas, and addresses a challenging topic that could potentially subvert the thinking around entrenched ideas.

Clues to success

Komiya: The quality and number of joint industry and academic collaborations has improved. Recently, the merging of efforts between industry and academia, which is a result of such deepening collaborations, has seen companies setting up their research institutes at universities.

What successful instances of company-university merger efforts have in common is that the aims of their research and development are carefully discussed from the outset, when parties are cultivating their vision.

Kajiwara: Speaking about how companies operate, workers actively exercise their abilities if they feel aligned with clear visions and goals. At the same time, such a situation creates a positive cycle, attracting personnel to that company who identify with the organizational vision.

Paradigm shift for universities

Tokuhiro: I also feel that paradigm shift is necessary for universities. Frankly speaking, I think it is okay to have this bold idea that companies establish their own universities. In fact, Dyson Ltd. of the U.K. established The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and SoftBank did something similar.

Moreover, the education ministry is considering introducing a system to allow private universities to “hand over” their departments. Using such a system would possibly make it easier for companies to establish their own universities.

Sasaki: It is a major task of how society can best utilize researchers who have advanced to studying at the doctorate level and are dedicated to their research, as well as spawning innovation — particularly in the area of biological science.

Recently, two young researchers from our laboratory were selected to participate in innovation creation programs by the Japan Science and Technology Agency. However, they then faced the situation of not being able to receive program support, as they had not held official university posts, despite being excellent researchers. I heard that such instances do not occur in other engineering fields.

Kajiwara: I understand; circumstances vary according to each department and division. I guess the government needs to review any relevant systems flexibly.

Komiya: I know that affinity is not so great between research and development, which moves faster, and the government’s framework. Government output toward policy goals is expected to proceed in a linear manner. Furthermore, government budgets are, in principle, created once a year.

We’d like to promote discussions on such topics, including issues that came up during the subcommittee discussion.