The SDGs adopted by the U.N. in September 2015 are intended to be achieved by 2030. The 17 goals and 169 associated targets are for both developing and advanced economies to pursue to realize a society that will “leave no one behind.”

Click here to find details of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s SDG initiatives.

There are many companies that provide students with online learning programs, but SuRaLa Net’s focus is on helping students with low academic ability.

“There is a correlation between academic ability and the income levels of households with students, in any part of the world,” SuRaLa Net Co. founder and Chief Executive Officer Takahiko Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s focus.

“But many educational companies, including those providing e-learning services, target students with high academic ability, and tend to leave behind children with low academic ability or from low-income households,” he continued. “We aim to eliminate a negative spiral of income gaps and educational gaps by providing educational materials online aimed at helping raise the academic ability of students with low academic skills,” he said. “And we see a business opportunity there.”

“In the corner of my mind, there was a vague idea that we may be able to contribute to solving social issues by, for example, promoting literacy in emerging countries,” Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s motive for targeting both domestic and overseas markets. “In my previous job (at Venture Link Inc.), I had an opportunity to travel to an emerging country and was shocked to find out that the local literacy rate then was lower than I had expected. That experience was the starting point,” he said. “I was especially shocked to learn that over 10% of Chinese and over 30% of Indians could not read. Levels of education were noticeably low especially among people in poor and low-income classes.

“Our company’s strength is in addressing low-achievement students, and so our curriculums proceed in gradual steps and provide careful explanation. That means they don’t require much tweaking to be used in emerging countries. We began offering the service in Sri Lanka in 2016 and we now operate also in Indonesia, India and the Philippines,” he said.

“Operating a business overseas can lead to creating social value in the region, and the size of the market is many times that of the Japanese market, so it was obvious to us that overseas expansion was essential for the company’s growth over the medium to long term,” he said. “The problem was, we were at the time preparing for listing our shares, partly because of the exit strategy of the fund. Expanding operations overseas would require a lot of funding. Luckily, we were able to receive assistance from JICA’s Feasibility Survey for SDGs Business (formerly the Preparatory Survey on BOP Business),” he said, referring to the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

“After we launched business overseas, we were again fortunate to receive support from the programs of public organizations, such as JETRO (the Japan External Trade Organization),” he said.

In the past, menstruation, pregnancy and menopause were regarded as taboo subjects in the workplace and related concerns were left unaddressed as matters individuals were supposed to deal with on their own. Now some companies have begun efforts to use so-called femtech (products and services that incorporate technology to address women’s health) to improve the mental and physical status of women and take maximum advantage of their professional abilities. This article introduces two companies offering femtech services aimed at contributing to the creation of a society where everyone can shine.

Women’s health goes high-tech

　Femtech, a portmanteau of female and technology, was coined by Danish entrepreneur Ida Tin, the chairwoman of Clue. The word has been gaining currency since around 2016 after she used it to solicit investment in the Clue menstrual cycle forecasting app she developed. The app garnered attention for its claim to solve worries specific to women, who represent half the population of the planet. Investment is gradually increasing, driven by expectations for growth.

Personal or global in scope?

What are the impacts of mental and physical health issues on working women? Needless to say, they are unique to women, but there are findings that suggest the impact goes beyond the personal and negatively affects society at large.

For example, menstruation is said to cause economic and societal losses. The annual financial burden from the associated symptoms, including loss of labor, doctors’ fees and medicine costs, is estimated to total about ¥700 billion, according to a report by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Healthcare Industries Division from March 2019.

In addition, female-specific events can cause some to give up their career plans. For example, women with fertility problems are often forced to accept changes in employment status or quit if treatment makes it too difficult to continue. Some give up promotions or even resign due to the difficulties posed by menopausal disorders. According to a March 2018 survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, women forced to quit their jobs to continue fertility treatment came to 22.7%, with 9.7% giving up on treatment due to difficulties posed by work, bringing the total to 32.4%. This finding suggests changes and declines in mental and physical condition specific to women are making it too difficult to achieve their career goals.

The desire to address these female-specific issues was behind the birth of femtech. Now, the question is what are the solutions femtech aims to provide?

Women facing their bodies

“There are few opportunities for women to learn about their own bodies,” Risa Nasu, deputy general manager of MTI Ltd.’s Luna Luna business division, said. “It’s important for them to have the correct knowledge.”

Although many women experience severe menstrual pain and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, “there are many who do not regard premenstrual pains as disorders. They tend to take it for granted that they have to deal with the pains themselves simply because they are women,” Nasu said. Since it is difficult to compare one’s cramps with somebody else’s, women tend not to think of going to the doctor if they do not regard such pain as an illness, she said.

“Menstruation is a mechanism in which hormonal changes cause physical conditions to change, and it’s by no means a temperamental issue specific to women,” she said. “It’s important to understand that it’s a legitimate bodily mechanism.”

Therefore, acquiring practical knowledge about their own bodies is the first step women should take, Nasu said.

MTI’s femtech service helps women understand and manage their menstrual cycles so they can deal with their bodies and correctly understand them.

In explaining the government’s measures to support the small and medium-sized parts manufacturers that support the aircraft industry, Akira Miyakoshi, who heads the aircraft component and material industries office of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Aerospace and Defense Industry Division, said, “Now’s an important time in which manufacturers must brush up on their technology to help develop next-generation aircraft, but the situation remains tough for them to take off successfully.”

“It’s essential for us to take measures to maintain and strengthen supply chains, while supporting parts manufacturers, which total more than 600 across Japan,” he added, emphasizing the government’s plans to provide solid support to the aircraft industry.

The support has two purposes: to help parts manufacturers stay in business and to support their future growth. The key ways in which the government helps them stay afloat are through financing and employment assistance. METI’s regional bureaus are working with labor bureaus, the Industrial Employment Stabilization Center and local governments to encourage secondment and transfer of employees with diverse skills to other companies or industries. The program has so far resulted in the secondment and transfer of 354 employees in the Chubu region and 123 employees in the Kanto region.

A mid- to long-term support program encourages active application of advanced technologies developed for the aircraft industry in other areas, using a subsidy program to support drastic business reconstruction such as entering new business fields. The program is aimed at strengthening parts manufacturers by helping them expand their business portfolio.

METI is also helping small and medium-sized parts manufactures develop sales channels overseas, anticipating a recovery in aircraft demand. The specific goal is to encourage collaboration with other Asian countries where demand for aircraft is growing and the aircraft industry continues to expand.

About five years ago, METI began an attempt to build a supply chain covering the entire Asia region. For starters, the ministry is working to establish collaborative relations with the Malaysian government, aiming to sign a memorandum of cooperation between the two countries on civil aircraft industry cooperation by the end of the fiscal year.

Through these efforts, the ministry aims to help maintain and strengthen supply chains. In addition, it plans to support Japanese companies’ efforts to achieve carbon neutrality, or net-zero emissions of global warming gases.

Around the globe, efforts to achieve emissions-cutting goals in the aviation industry are underway. In recent years, airlines have announced road maps to decarbonization while aircraft makers have touted concept planes for the future. These moves continue to gain momentum even amid the pandemic.

“Japanese companies are no exception. They are accelerating technological development efforts for the future,” according to METI’s Sakura Murahashi, deputy director of the Aerospace and Defense Industry Division of METI’s Manufacturing Industries Bureau.

“It’’s important for them to find opportunities to collaborate with original equipment manufacturers overseas as early as possible to ensure that the technologies that give the Japanese industry an edge will be used in the next-generation aircraft models,” she said.

“We aim to support such efforts by Japanese companies through cooperation deals with governments and companies in Europe and the United States and technological development assistance measures,” Murahashi said, indicating the government’s intention to support Japanese companies’ efforts.

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.

A demonstration experiment by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government of a self-driving taxi coordinating with an airport limousine bus is scheduled to begin soon in Tokyo. This project aims to provide a boost to the development of next-generation transportation systems. It seeks to enable smooth access to the city center for inbound travelers, facilitating easier transition from limousine buses to taxis through smartphone apps. This is exactly what MaaS envisions: multiple forms of transportation that are convenient to use.

One of ZMP Inc.’s technologies constitutes a main component in this project. The company first conducted a demonstration experiment of autonomous driving with a driver on board on public roads in Aichi Prefecture in 2014 and went on to expand the testing area.

At the end of 2017, ZMP held a test on public roads for a remotely controlled autonomous driving system without anyone in control of the steering wheel. In 2018, the firm became the world’s first company to have a commercial run of an autonomous driving taxi, which occurred between the districts of Otemachi and Roppongi. Through these efforts, ZMP has accumulated much knowhow concerning automotive technology and related services.

Last year’s demonstration experiment saw a taxi drive autonomously on more than 90 percent of its operational routes. The company said it received feedback from users saying that they were able to travel at ease using the taxi. With an eye on introducing autonomous driving to service vehicles operating inside airports, Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture and Chubu Centrair International Airport in Aichi Prefecture have promoted relevant demonstrations. Expectations are high for streamlining operations at airports, which have been extremely busy amid an increase in international travelers.

Responding to needs

Regarding the company’s series of experiments, ZMP President Hisashi Taniguchi said: “The experiments are not solely for realizing autonomous driving for cars that exist today. How can we respond with technology to needs that are not fulfilled using conventional transportation means as well as to issues confronting society? I believe MaaS will provide clues.”

Concerning any necessities to resolve such issues, he said, “It could be a new form of mobility or a personal robot.”

MaaS is about to transform not only transportation, but also the mobility of goods. One such example is ZMP’s unmanned shipping service of items sold at convenience stores using delivery robots.

People who order items receive a QR code on their smartphones that serves as a key to a locker housed in the robot. They scan the code using the robot’s camera, enabling them to unlock the locker and collect the items. This unmanned delivery system, which also finalizes payment, is the first of its kind in the world, according to the company.

Seeing MaaS from his unique perspective as a robot developer, Taniguchi aims to offer a new mode of transport involving autonomous driving that connects the “last one mile” from users’ homes or workplaces to public transportation hubs such as stations and bus stops.

“If it’s called ‘mobility,’ some people might think of a vehicle; but it could be something like a ‘partner’ to humans,” Taniguchi said.

Some companies have strived to fundamentally improve the social environment surrounding nursing care by storing scientific data and empirical values, which are difficult to visualize, in artificial intelligence.

ExaWizards Inc., a startup founded in 2016, has been working on reforming nursing care sites, including those with patients suffering from dementia.

ExaWizards President and CEO Ko Ishiyama served as the first head of the Recruit Institute of Technology and later joined a university-originated venture company in 2017, founded by Yoichi Takebayashi, a specially appointed professor at Shizuoka University, and others. Takebayashi is a leading expert in data analysis for dementia. The venture firm merged with AI venture ExaIntelligence, originating from Kyoto University, leading to the launch of ExaWizards.

One of many projects that ExaWizards has concurrently promoted is the effort to disseminate a caregiving method known as Humanitude, which was developed in France more than 40 years ago. The company has also been working to analyze the effects of this method and spread the proper way of its caregiving.

One example from this project is to help nurture personnel in the nursing care field by utilizing the company’s original video coaching app and AI.

“For example, in order to communicate with people suffering from dementia, you need to talk to them from a distance of about 20 centimeters while sustaining eye contact,” Ishiyama said. “If you talk to them from their side or touch their body without proper knowledge of how to contact them, they might be surprised and it could prompt an adverse reaction.”

ExaWizards is now developing a service that enables caregivers to send a video capturing their actual caregiving approach; then the company’s AI would measure the distance of their contact with a patient. The video would be sent back to the caregivers, featuring written advice in red pen and comments from caregiving experts. An example of such a comment could be, “It’s better for you to have your face in front of the patient so that you can easily maintain eye contact.”

If this service becomes widely used, it would surely provide an opportunity for caregivers to reflect on their approach. Additionally, it could contribute to the improvement of the quality of overall care provided by a facility.

“Acquiring proper caregiving methods could reduce the chances of adverse reactions from patients, which would eventually alleviate the burden on caregivers themselves,” Ishiyama noted.

From March, ExaWizards also began providing a service to analyze nursing care data possessed by municipal governments. Assessing intervention effects in dementia care has been difficult because symptoms advance as time goes by. But if the introduction of AI were to help predict transitions of nursing care levels, it could visualize intervention effects. It could enable municipalities to have clearer prospects for their future fiscal conditions and properly implement projects for prevention.