Open Innovation is TRENDING in Japan!! Can collaboration between Startups and large corporation help stagnated Japanese innovation?
Due to the recent outburst of startup ecosystem players in Japan, we can see the presence of more than 100 acceleration programs all over Japan. The uniqueness of these acceleration programs in Japan is the domination of “open innovation” between startups and large corporations. With half of the total investments in startups coming from corporate venture capital fund, large corporates are looking for innovative solutions together with startups,
Tokyo, a Megacity and the capital of Japan, hosts most of the Open innovation programs organised by large corporations and accelerators in wide verticals ranging from telecom, real estate, railroad, electrical manufacturing to medical, energy, architecture and so on.
Ricoh is one of the biggest Japanese company in the field of workplace innovation.
http://ricoh2019.01booster.com
As of date, primarily large Japanese corporations are collaborating mainly with Japanese startups but this trend has started to change as few companies are internationalizing open innovation. For example, Rakuten, a giant e-commerce company, organised ‘Rakuten Accelerator’ open for startups around the globe. (https://www.techstars.com/rakuten-program)
Recently Ricoh launched a joint program for building an ecosystem for intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs with the aim to encourage borderless interactions between Ricoh’s internal ecosystem and external ecosystem to encourage open innovation at all levels.
Japan has experienced extended economic recession for more than 30 years. We think that the above mentioned initiatives will be the solution for this depression. Although it started late but with many talented people at large corporations moving to startups and institutions focusing on open innovation, Japanese have started to struggle to find their new innovative lives and Japan have a clear path to become pioneer as an innovation hub.
