March 30, 2017

The Industry-UCB-UEC Workshop 2017 (IUUWS 2017) was held on 27-28 March 2017 at UEC with participants from industry, University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and University of Electro-Communications (UEC).

The workshop was inspired by a general agreement concluded by UCB and UEC to promote joint research and education on 25 September 2015. Notably, the workshop focused on establishing closer industrial-academia collaborative links to establish an innovative social platform for the realization of Society 5.0—a major pillar of the “5th Science and Technology Basic Plan”, proposed by the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan in 2016.

The workshop was opened by UEC President Takashi Fukuda, who welcomed the delegates from industry and UCB, and gave his full support to the goals of the workshop and the UCB-UEC agreement.

Next, Naoki Saito, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) gave a plenary talk on government policy and research trends in Japan. This was followed by a keynote presentation by Haruo Takeda, Corporate Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.

The remainder of the workshop consisted of six technical sessions (below) and a panel discussion on innovation for a sustainable society to make a proposal to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics organization. The workshop was closed by Kazushi Nakano (UEC, Member of the Board of Directors, Education and International Strategy), who thanked the speakers for their talks and, “looked forward to building on the success of this meeting and organizing the workshop again in 2018.” More than 50 participants attended the workshop.

• 1) Robotics and Engineering for High-Quality Life Services
• 2) Bio-Engineering
• 3) Semiconductor Materials and Systems
• 4) Space Science / Earth Science
• 5) Introduction of UEC Research Activities
• 6) Energy Conservation / Renewable Energy