The CiP Digital Special Zone “Four-Function Hub”

　The CiP (Contents Innovation Program) is a plan to construct a digital and content zone in the bay area of Minato Ward, Tokyo. Herein follows the third part of the launch announcement. It concerns the features offered by the CiP.

3) Four-Function Hub

We will produce a compact cluster of industry, education, and culture. The so-called ◯◯Valley plans received attention at one point, but Takeshiba is no valley. It is sea and air. We will make use of Hamamatsucho City by the Haneda Airport. We will digitally entertain foreign visitors.

We will expand and utilize the area facing Tokyo Bay. Tokyo is a capital city on the sea. Neither the US, nor the UK, nor France, Germany, Italy, China, or Korea has a seaside capital city. Let’s capitalize on our ocean, Tokyo. Let’s make use of the harbor, the waterfront, and the water surface.

We want Tokyo to be the hub that connects all regions: Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Akihabara, Ginza, Uchisaiwaicho, Shiodome, Akasaka, and Roppongi. Every stop along the Yamanote Sennai line has all manner of concentrated culture: music, fashion, animation, games, advertisements, TV, etc. Furthermore, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, and Shinagawa Station await redevelopment. We will also advance development as we turn to the Olympics. Every place will become digital, all will be connected.

We want to become the hub that connects prominent Japanese cities. We want to connect the content special zone of Sapporo; the movies, comics, animation, and games center of Kyoto; the music and games goliath of Fukuoka; the international film festival home of Okinawa; and many other cities.

We want to tie together the world’s prominent cities: Boston, west coast universities, London research facilities, Parisian events, the projects of Singapore, the incubation facilities of Seoul. We want to become the hub of all these.

The CiP has four functions: research and development, human resource cultivation, business startup support, and business matching. It will create technology, cultivate people, industrialize, and expand business globally, then research the results. I will try to depict that cycle.

We will consecutively enact development, training, and industrialization. We have no knowledge of such a production cycle model being successful in Japan, but this is how we wish to do battle. The digital realm contains large businesses which developed from research and development. Military research spawned the Internet, which resulted in net business. The game technology MIT developed in the 70’s gave rise to Japan’s game industry.

US universities have influence. Stanford University birthed Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and Google. Harvard University students created Microsoft and Facebook. MIT created eInk and $100 laptops. We want Japan to likewise show innovation in learning institutions.

There is precedent. The FM station opened by Tokai University in 1960 became FM Tokyo. In 2008, Osaka University and Keio University carried out an experimental project through industry-academic connections, which resulted in the net radio “radiko.” We want to inspire many such examples.

Although the CiP aims for a production cycle of research and development, human resource cultivation, business startup support, and business matching, it does not aim to create a sterile space. Imagine the “MIT Media Lab” which is like a digital toybox, the nonprofit “CANVAS” workshop project of children’s creations, the west coast business startup community “500 Startups,” and the chaotic “Niconico Chokaigi” convention where people of all spheres interact. We will concentrate such elements into one place that is active 365 days a year.  We anticipate a chemical reaction from this integration and fusion. Such is the kind of school, factory, and public space we wish to create.

　CiP wants to become Hatsune Miku. Hatsune Miku is composed of three components. First, “vocaloid” technology. If you write a song, this technology becomes a specialist singer. Second, content. The design is a 16-year-old, 158 cm, 42 kg character.

　And third, community. Niconico videos grew her up thanks to everyone’s participation. They tried songwriting. They tried singing. They tried musical performance and dancing. Everyone brought their own abilities to the table. The cooperative force of technology, design, and participation is Japan’s forte. We want to leverage this.