Can Japan make use of Big Data?

“Big Data” may be a buzzword, but there can be no mistake that this represents the next generation in the digital age. By showing market trends and predicting changes in industrial environments, it has the power to change business, medicine and government.  I’d like to concentrate on the possibilities of “infrastructure” and “individual.” First, in terms of infrastructure, big data can be used to analyze mobile phone traffic to estimate population distribution and to use that information to plan for disasters and city planning. Big Data...

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A Content Policy for 100 Years

Cool Japan and others have looked at the content policy put forth by the government and asked, “Is that something that the government should be involved in?” Manga, anime, and games are popular overseas, but they are subcultures and it’s questionable as to whether or not the government should try to interfere in them. Personally I believe that the government should be involved. The content policies aren’t meant as training measures for specific industries. It’s just that the external effect of promoting content is huge. The goal is not to improve...

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Really? The Cool Japan Policy

 Four years ago, when I was employed as chairman of the government’s intellectual property division, a pillar of our mission was to promote the “Cool Japan” policy. With manga, anime, and games at the core of pop culture, this also involved fashion, food, traditional crafts, sightseeing, and anything else that could display Japan’s economic and cultural “soft power.” In particular, our mission was to promote Japan in the international marketplace.  However, our efforts fell short. The rest of the world didn’t rank Japan very highly....

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