■ Maybe Lose the Fax Machines before Talking about DX??
At the Digital Nation Japan Forum, I took the stage in a segment on the development of regional DX talent.
The shortage of IT talent has gone unresolved for 20 years, with 40% of user companies facing shortages. At the same time, transitions from IT company to user company are only increasing. A sense of crisis is emerging in industry, which I view as a positive movement.
iU opened its doors to nurture DX talent. As conventional classroom learning would be ineffective, it is being built together with companies.
Practice trumps knowledge, so all participants learn while engaging in internships or entrepreneurship.
This is but a small-scale model. The intent is to expand such actions in collaboration with numerous schools.
Materials by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications point out four sectors in which Japan's IT utilization lags that overseas: government administration, healthcare, education, and management.
The problems here are bureaucrats, doctors, teachers, and CEOs.
The problems lie more at the top levels than the bottom levels. Without change at the top, solutions are impossible. Government offices, hospitals, schools, and CEOs must be made to use digital technologies.
In industry-government-academic cooperation in the digital field, academia is the problem. A great gap divides industry and academia in Japan.
To date, the central government bureaucracy has shouldered platform functions in Japan.
The government took the lead in bringing together and guiding companies, in a style that has now reached its end. The role that academia should play is a significant one. The nation's universities should be mobilized.
In the collaboration between the city of Kyotango and iU, universities essentially serve as consultants to collaborate with relevant companies, promote regional government DX, and engage in education for high school students in the city. This is government-industry-academic collaboration at the local level.
Inquiries are coming in from other local governments, seeking advice on setting up similar frameworks.
Such initiatives could be advanced in collaboration with universities in many regions.
And yet.
There is a village in Yamaguchi Prefecture that mistakenly made transfers for 46.3 million yen. The transactions involved the floppy disks that are used by the village on an everyday basis.
That's what "digital" meant for them. Government offices and banks. The leaders in regions.
We talk about DX, but before that, let's use the Internet the way it is normally used.
Let's ditch the fax machines and introduce telework. We can start with these simple things.
