Tokyo Tech News

Tokyo Tech Center of Innovation visited

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Published: July 28, 2016

The Tokyo Tech Center of Innovation (COI) site visit was held at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) Hall of Ookayama Campus on June 6. A large number of visitors from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), including Visionary Leader Akira Yokota JST and MEXT Project Manager Shuichi Sakamoto, were present. Tokyo Tech President Yoshinao Mishima, Executive Vice President Makoto Ando, Project Leader Shigeyuki Akiba, Research Leader Shunri Oda, and members of companies and faculty members participating in COI also joined the event.

JST, MEXT, and other visitors
JST, MEXT, and other visitors

Opening remarks by Tokyo Tech President Yoshinao Mishima
Opening remarks by Tokyo Tech President Yoshinao Mishima

After opening remarks by Mishima, Phase 1 activities from the past three years and Phase 2 policies for the next three years were explained by Akiba and Oda. Phase 2 involves the implementation of four services – information recall, multilingual paraphrasing, telepresence communications, and connected co-creation space services – and their platform technologies as reported by research groups made up of participating company members and corresponding Institute members.

Presentation on COI research and development
Presentation on COI research and development

After lunch, Tokyo Tech COI's "Ishin Denshin" intelligent communications lab gave a demonstration about their research findings, with the first half focusing on information recall and telepresence communication services. During the information recall demo, the speaker, located on Tokyo Tech's Suzukakedai Campus, instantly recalled information using mail analysis results and answered questions from the audience in Ookayama. In the telepresence communication demo, the remotely located speaker was displayed in two ways – as an actual image of the person and as an avatar robot whose gestures are fully synchronized with those of the speaker. It is of great interest how these technologies will be utilized in future.

Demonstrations of information recall

telepresence communication services

Demonstrations of information recall (left) and telepresence communication services (right)

The second half of the demonstration provided an overview of the four themes related to connected co-creation space services: a method for visualizing empathy in communication, a multi-axis chargeless sensor which receives wireless power from the ceiling, measurement of sensitivity using virtual reality, and biomagnetic measurement of brain activity using a diamond quantum sensor.

Demos of visualization of empathy

Demos of chargeless sensor

Demos of visualization of empathy (left) and chargeless sensor (right)

Demos of sensitivity measurement

Demos of sensor magnetoencephalography

Demos of sensitivity measurement (left) and sensor magnetoencephalography (right)

Upon return to ELSI Hall, discussions regarding the future execution of the project continued. In addition to continued identification potential issues and solutions, participants also highlighted the importance of clearly informing the public of COI activities through its Science Cafe events, and discussed the relationship between the project and the Personal Information Protection Law.

After the final discussions, JST and MEXT executives provided feedback which will be carefully considered as Tokyo Tech continues with the social implementation of the project. Executive Vice President Ando ended the six-hour event with closing remarks, reiterating the current state of affairs at Tokyo Tech COI.

Visionary Leader Yokota providing feedback

Vice President Ando with closing remarks

Visionary Leader Yokota providing feedback (left), and Vice President Ando with closing remarks (right)

Contact

Happiness Co-creation Society through "Ishin-Denshin" Intelligent Communications (HAPIC)

Email coi.info@coi.titech.ac.jp
Tel +81-3-5734-3562

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