Innovation Nippon the 4th Symposium 2013
Women and Innovation Networking
Date：March 14, 2014
Venue: ITOKI Tokyo Innovation Center SYNQA
Wing（Women and Innovation Networking）was established on December 2013 as apart of the project “Innovation Nippon” which has been jointly promoted by GLOCOM
and Google to deliver the message that “Women will take the initiative in innovation inthe 21st Century.” After establishment, it a conducted survey and workshop centering on
the themes of women and ICT & innovation, then held the Wing Symposium at ITOKITokyo Innovation Center on March 14, 2014 with the aim of networking among people
who share an awareness of the issues, as well as reporting the results of studies by
publicizing the contents of the discussion. It was organized by Innovation Nippon andbacked by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
At the symposium, Seiko Noda, a member of the House of Representatives whoworked as a chairperson of the LDP General Council at the time made a keynote speech.
Ms. Noda said, “Women’s involvement in economic activity is the last fortress to recover
Japanese economy,” and showed her commitment as a member of the controlling
political party to work for providing more opportunities for women. Ms. Noda who isfamiliar with ICT policy, also said, “I hope that ICT will be utilized for connecting
women’s idea to new business.” As for starting a new business, while citing a rule that a
constant rate of governmental procurement in U.S. has been allocated to women-owned
companies, she emphasized the need of tackling this problem as a growth strategy fromthe political and governmental sides.
Next, Ms. Miki Iwamura, Marketing Director, Google Japan Inc. made a speech andintroduced Google’s approach that it should “Hire and retain diverse personnel anddevelop their careers.” Under this program called “G Career,” at the hiring phase, those
staff who “have more than 5-year careers and have not worked for more than 1 year due
to child nursing or family nursing” are engaged in work for 30 hours/week for 20 weeks.
At the Retain and Development phase, a group called “Women＠google” for employees tosupport each other is deployed. As for outside the company, she mentioned theirapproach to provide support for women starting business or opportunities to experience
technologies using the keyword “Women + Tech.”
Subsequently, a panel discussion was convened. Ms. Kaoru Sunada, Executive
Research Fellow, Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan,

served as a moderator and Ms. Yuka Watanabe, President of FabLab Kamakura LLC,Makiko Miyajima, Executive Board Member of NPO Yokohama Community DesignLaboratory, and Mika Yasuoka, Visiting Fellow of Copenhagen IT University andGLOCOM, and Ms. Kana Kobayashi, Economic and Social Policy Office, Economic andIndustrial Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry took the rostrum aspanelists.
First, each panelist made a presentation. Ms. Watanabe said that FabLab will focus
on human development and the sharing of international values in the future andpointed that especially in the latter, there is a problem of low representation of women.
Ms. Miyajima said that she had a lot of opportunities to meet women who are providing
support for child nursing and job assistance for young people through her experience inlocal community. She emphasized the importance for men to communicate with such
women without protesting even if they still feel it different culture. Ms. Yasuoka made apresentation on the reasons for Northern Europe’s top ranking in the IT index, etc.,
attributing it to two perspectives of participatory design and utilization of women. Ms.
Kobayashi introduced some approaches such as “100 selections of diversity startingbusiness” as a policy related to promotion the participation of women, which is one ofMETI’s growth strategies. Finally, through discussion, the participants confirmed thatthe activation of women will be an important factor in economic policy in Japan in the21st century and diversity will be a key for promoting innovation in a knowledge
economy.