HSI Report: Special Workshop
for Bio/Healthcare Business
University News | September 12, 2023
Creating a profitable start-up is no walk in the park. How
can one create a successful business that can both generate
revenue AND cater to human needs? In the Hokkaido
Summer Institute (HSI), participants of the Special
Workshop for Bio/Healthcare Business teamed up to comeup with start-up ideas based on the current challenges
faced by society.

Post-workshop photo with student participants, lecturers, and organizers.

This course was a 2-day joint-workshop organized by Nagoya City
University, Yonsei University, Ritsumeikan University, and Hokkaido
University. Taking place in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences ofHokkaido University, the students first attended the Open
Innovation Seminar. Connecting industry and academia, this seriesof lectures invited researchers and other experts in the healthindustry: Prof. Han Sung Kim (Yonsei University), Mr. Hideyuki
Kitamura (Sumitomo Life Insurance), Dr. Masakatsu Kobayashi(Ono Pharma), Mr. Shinya Takeuchi (Pasona Inc.), and Dr. Kaori
Shigetomi-Kuribayashi (formerly, Hokkaido University), Dr. Taruho
Kuroda (Newsight Tech Angels), and Mr. Carlos Oba (Dots for Inc.).

Professor Kota Kodama (Nagoya City University) is responsible forputting together the Open Innovation Seminar and this workshop.
“By learning from researchers and practitioners from the industry,
participants should be able to identify the challenges in the society. I
hope that it would lead to the development of innovative ideas intoactions. Also, I hope that they can develop international
communication skills and entrepreneurship that will help achieve
their personal and organizational cohorts’ ambitions.”

During the two-day intensive workshop there was no time to idle. Students were also
highly encouraged to scrutinize the other groups’ progress and to give each otherfeedback.

Coming from a wide range of fields, backgrounds, and cultures, thelecturers’ presentations laid the groundwork for the participants’
final project: conceptualizing a healthcare business model. After
drawing inspiration from the talks students were then divided into
groups, each needing to come up with a single business idea.
Assistant Professor Karin Kurata (National Institute of Technology,Tsuruoka College) moderated the lecture sessions and provided theparticipants with the fundamentals of start-up creation. Kurata
introduced the groups of students to useful tools and frameworks foranalyzing every key element of business: customer, resource, finance,

partners, etc. Each student was brimming with ideas, so having aframework helped systemize their abstract ideas.
By thinking realistically, each team also had to acknowledge thepotential shortcomings in any business operation. Students often
reflected on the already existing ventures in their analyses. The final
business models were presented to the entire class at the end of thecourse.
A student in pharmacy, Hasyidan Ariffin (Universiti Sains Malaysia),
said that his interest is in industrial pharmacy, which is perfectly inline with the course’s theme. “As a pharmacist-to-be, I believe that I
already have enough knowledge on pharmaceuticals, but myknowledge regarding entrepreneurship was close to zero; that is,until I joined this workshop. I gained a lot of new knowledge.”

The student team winning the best presentation received prizes.

Hokkaido Summer Institute offers 349 courses in multiple
disciplines this summer. To learn more about HSI, visit their website:
https://hokkaidosummerinstitute.oia.hokudai.ac.jp/
Written by Aprilia Agatha Gunawan