Japan in the Bay Area: Developing Entrepreneurial Business Partnerships in the New Japan

We invite you to a groundbreaking conference organized by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute with the US-Asia Technology Management Center (USATMC), on innovation, startups and technology development in Japan, and the bridge connecting Bay Area/Silicon Valley companies to Japan’s changing ecosystem.  The conference builds on a program organized at Stanford in March 2019 on Japan’s technology, innovation and startup footprint in the Bay Area, and a report released by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute in December 2019 that assesses the changing role of Japanese corporations in the region and how the strategies being pursued here link to transformation strategies being adopted at home. This new program will focus on current developments in Japan, including trends, issues and opportunities for partnership in the Japanese market. Speakers will include founders and investors from both the Bay Area and Japan. Confirmed panelists and presenters include Dr. Kenji Kushida (Research Scholar, Japan Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center), Dr. Richard Dasher (Director, US-Asia Technology Management Center), Dr. Sean Randolph (Senior Director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute), Gen Isayama (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, World Innovation Lab), Akiko Naka (Co-Founder and CEO, Wantedly), Christian Sanz (Co-Founder and CEO, Skycatch), and Neeti Mehta Shukla (SVP, Automation Anywhere).