Kyoto: the Japanese start-up community powering the future of smart cities (Part 2)

Hiroyuki Suzuki

Executive Vice President, Representative Director

Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR).

After a career in telecoms technology, Suzuki moved to ATR and is in charge of corporate management and planning, and business developments. He is also developing the global innovation ecosystem in Keihanna Science City together with local governments, companies, start-ups, universities, research institutes, and local residents, based on global networks constructed with leading innovation partners in Barcelona, Canada, India, Israel, New York City and Japan.

Robert Kunzmann

Chief Marketing Officer

AC Biode

Robert is a serial entrepreneur focused on Cleantech. Previously, he was a researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight at the University of Cambridge. There specialised in reducing waste through transportation technology.

Robert worked on a Horizon 2020 research project to develop manufacturing capabilities for mass-producing houses under Laing O´Rourke.

Lotfi El Hafi

President & Founder

Coarobo GK

Lotfi El Hafi is the President & Founder of Coarobo GK and a Research Assistant Professor at Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO) for the International and Interdisciplinary Research Center for the Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence and Semiotics.

His achievements in international robotics competitions led him to become a Specially Appointed Researcher for the Toyota HSR Community and a Research Advisor for Robotics Competitions at the Robotics Hub of Panasonic Corporation since 2019.

Soji Nagano

Chief Design Officer

Koeerü inc

Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Soji received a dual master’s degree in International Relations and Linguistics from Macquarie University, Sydney. Upon returning to Japan, he began his career in the financial data company HISMarkit.

In the last several years, as his passion for design thinking increased, he cofounded Koeerü Inc. with an eye on bringing design thinking ideas to Voice of Consumer technology solutions.

Ayumu Mitera

CEO

Mitsufuji Corporation

After graduating from university, he joined Panasonic and worked for foreign IT companies such as Cisco Systems. In 2016, he launched hamon, a wearable platform that uses silver-metalized conductive fiber as sensor. Ever since he’s been developing co-creation platforms in various fields such as employee safety management and health promotion projects for local governments using algorithm-analyzed.

In 2018 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the 1st Forbes JAPAN "SMALL GIANTS AWARD" for his efforts for the transformation from a Nishijin textile factory to a wearable IoT business.

Tsubasa Sugai

CEO

spicecube.inc

I’m an agricultural nerd. We would like to show you that you can farm indoors all over the world. I myself have a track record of the agricultural renovation of ordinary houses.