In the first week of February 2022, the Global Innovation Studies Department of Toyo University in Japan has successfully delivered their annual flagship event, Creatoyo.
As every year, the event aimed at promoting creativity and innovation by gathering artists, academics, associations and business professionals and have them work in close collaboration with groups of students.

Based on the positive feedback received for the first Business Innovation Award delivered in 2021, encognize was invited to design and power the 2nd edition of the Creatoyo Business Innovation Award in a renewed online format.
This year, 3 teams of students have worked on creating a business concept and its related presentation, answering the question: "2025 - Impact Innovation: What societal problem will you solve as a for profit business entrepreneur?"
This theme directly aligns with encognize commitment to support the development of responsible X-Tech digital businesses.

For a rich experience, the 3 teams were coached by 3 startup founders coming each from different backgrounds and working on diverse social innovation-related solutions:

• Yu Shinagawa, Founder & CEO at An-Nahal, a startup offering services and programs aimed at increasing awareness around Diversity & Inclusion in Japan
• Masaki Ishibashi, Founder & CEO at Toyeight, a startup collaborating with Malaysian Top Universities to create an AI-based early childhood developmental assessment
• Cyrielle Thomas, a French founder based in Fukuoka and & CEO at Dokocha, a platform supporting the community of small Japanese Tea producers and  tea-related small businesses through Tea Tourism information, and Digitomenu, a service allowing restaurants to digitalize their menus and offer them in different languages for a better experience of non-Japanese speakers.

From AI to RegTech, from FinTech to EdTech, our encognize Japan X-Tech Force Team has helped you discover, understand, launch and shape throughout 2021 Q2 by delivering the following activities:

• DISCOVER - As Plug and Play Japan Service Partner, encognize GK was invited to present its refreshed version of Japan B2B practical Market Entry Recommendations to the Summer/Fall 2021 Batch participants across verticals. This revised presentation embeds further data points on trends and business opportunities in Japan.
• UNDERSTAND - As a direct support to its Singapore-based Business Partner RegPac Revolution, encognize GK has designed and delivered a Fireside Chat on the theme of "AI and education: Preparing your workforce for an AI era" at the RegPac 2021 RegTech Summit. The Fireside Chat has featured guest speakers from DataRobot and lawpilots. The full Fireside Chat replay can be found here.
• LAUNCH - On April 19, encognize GK announced the production launch of ELLA, an Adaptive-Learning-as-a-Service EdTech webAPI that can help personalize certain types of eLearning or mLearning solutions. ELLA was co-created and realized through encognize .lab4-203 Digital Innovation Launchpad services.
• SHAPE - As a direct follow-up to its joining of the Japan Financial Inclusion Consortium led by Nihon Unisys, encognize GK and its business partner AdviceRobo have further engaged in the shaping of a Financial Inclusion Platform through service design discussion based on the various consortium members' solutions and targeted financial inclusion services.

On March 12th 2021, Nihon Unisys announced the establishment of the "Financial Inclusion Consortium" 「金融包摂コンソーシアム」starting April 2021 with the vision of "enriching lives for everyone who does their best" in the current changing society 「がんばるみんなに豊かな暮らしを」. 
The "Financial Inclusion Consortium" aims at providing a variety of financial services in collaboration with financial institutions, human resource service providers and fintech companies among others, taking into consideration some of the major forces driving societal changes such as the impact of COVID19, work styles evolution, a higher lifestyle diversity or also the coming possibility to pay salary using e-money in Japan.
encognize, alongside AdviceRobo, a leading Fintech company in Alternative Credit Scoring supported by our Japan X-Tech Force, is one of the initial members of this "Financial Inclusion Consortium" led by Nihon Unisys.

Nihon Unisys Press Release here (Japanese only)
日本ユニシス社のニュースリリースはこちらです。

​"Financial Inclusion Consortium" webpage here (Japanese only)
「金融包摂コンソーシアム」のHPはこちらです。