As for future efforts, the Declaration to be the World's Most Advanced IT Nation calls for the nationwide deployment of medical information coordination platforms, health promotions, and initiatives to prevent the occurrence and the exacerbation of lifestyle diseases. MIC's Smart Platinum Society Promotion Conference has discussed these and other issues and is working toward the nationwide deployment of medical and nursing information coordination platforms using a high-quality, inexpensive minimal model that makes use of cloud technologies. The Conference is also working toward establishing an ICT health model (preventative healthcare) that enables citizens to maintain their health and live independently longer. In view of policies on future overseas expansion, Japan, as a pioneer in solving issues associated with a super-aging society, should provide Japan's ICT use and application models on a global scale. The government is seeking an international collaboration framework for the examination stage of these models, including working in partnership with universities, research institutions, and ICT businesses in other countries.

## (2) Examples of ICT applications in agriculture

Two observed issues for our agricultural sector are a decline in the number of primary farmers and the advanced ages of our farmers. Another concern is the increase in out-of-production fields and rice paddies that has accompanied the decrease in agricultural worker numbers. Given these conditions, the application of ICT to revive the nation's agricultural sector is expected to optimize the cultivation conditions for crops, transform the highly productive techniques of expert farmers into viewable data, improve yields through the establishment of practical techniques, and increase production and added value of agricultural produce that meets consumer needs by coordinating information from production to consumption.

### a. Local government survey results on agriculture

In the area of agriculture, the local government survey found the most common initiatives that local governments are currently either running or participating in / cooperating with are “direct online sales” (25.4 percent) and “traceability” (17.0 percent). In contrast to current initiatives, looking to the future local governments see “prevention of crop damage by wildlife” (11.2 percent) and “farmland management” (5.5 percent) as important fields for ICT applications (Figure 4-2-3-2).

### b. Government ICT use and application initiatives in agriculture

The government is moving ahead with initiatives to bolster the competitiveness of the agriculture industry based on the agriculture information creation and distribution promotion strategy, announced as a cross-government strategy by the IT Strategic Headquarters on June 3, 2014. The strategy pertains to the information handling and standardization needed to ensure the interoperability of agricultural information, so that a broad range of agricultural information can be generated and distributed throughout the entire agricultural sector, while heeding the rights of farmers who are trying to use and apply agricultural information.

## (3) Examples of ICT applications in education

Bringing ICT into education is fundamental to becoming the world's most advanced ICT nation. It is important that we build a 21st-century society in which children, who will lead the next generation of our country, become familiar with ICT at an early stage, elevate their information usage skills, and create new intellectual and cultural value. In the area of using and applying ICT in education, from FY 2010 until FY 2013 MIC ran the Future School Promotion Project in association with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Learning Innovation Project. As for using and applying ICT in university education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which open up online courses to a broad audience and provide credit for completing courses, are expanding primarily in the West, but Japan is also working on MOOCs.

Figure 4-2-3-2 Survey results on agriculture

(Source) "Study Report on the State of Regional ICT Use and Application," MIC (2014)