Innovation Practice 2018 – The 5th Workshop

The 5th workshop of the “Innovation Practice 2018” was held on Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at VBL Office, Hiroshima University.

To begin with, each group shared the progress of their proposal planning and the results of their analysis on similar services/products in public.

The group 1 had further deepened their consideration on use of rooftops, based on the two opposite future scenarios. One of them is where the air gets cleaner thanks to the advanced technology, and the other is to have sensible increase in air pollution due to expanded factory bases along with the industry development. They had considered how their imaginary unique characters would wish to spend their lives in each scenario and what kind of roles rooftops can play there, and investigated various topics from diseases, recreation activities, exercises for health for the elderly, to child-care service and the governmental policy over the environment, etc.

The group 2 investigated the existing services and the municipal materials related to the international students and children in the region. Compared against the existing services both in public and private, they were trying to identify where to mimic and what is currently missing. They also shared the interesting finding that the population of children has been leveling off in Higashi-Hiroshima City as a whole, while we know that it is growing in Saijo area. It gave some clue to the group 3 as well.

The group 3 further developed their business model to face two different layers of customers, one is mainly the elderly to wish the continued service to deliver paper-based news and the other is mainly the younger generation, wishing to receive news via smart technology. They have investigated diversified services and products in the market to think about how to leverage the established delivery channel of Koizumi Shinbunho, as well as to analyze feasibility of respective smart technology. They have started to create some image pictures of their proposals.

Following after, all tried the stakeholder analysis to be well prepared for the final presentation on December 12. They mapped out the stakeholders depending on the level of their impact and interest and ensured all potential stakeholders are properly covered.
Then they reconfirmed their ultimate objectives in 10 years, analyzed the gap between the objectives and the current state and came up with details action plans to fill the gap.
Each group has agreed on the roles and responsibilities at the final presentation coming in 2 weeks. We are all looking forward to seeing their idea buds unfold there!