2020 Q2, The "lockdown Quarter"...
Under these unprecedented conditions of massive lockdown and travel ban across the globe, the encognize team has focused their Q2 effort on continuing pushing new innovation initiatives in Japan as well as bringing extra support to overseas startup contemplating entering the Japanese Market despite the challenging context.
These efforts were reflected through the following achievements and activities:

• June 10: an important milestones was achieved for AdviceRobo, an Alternative Credit Scoring solution from the Netherlands represented in Japan by our encognize X-tech Force, with the official announcement of a collaboration project with Orix Credit in Japan. The full Japanese Press Release is available here and the English version here.
• June 12: As a Service Partner of Plug And Play Japan, encognize has delivered remote workshops for newly selected batches in the US and Europe on Japan Market Entry and the related B2B opportunities and challenges. This program gives the opportunity to new comers to Japan to understand what to expect and how to prepare for developing fruitful collaboration relationships with Japanese corporations through  the PnP Japan program.
• June 30: a dedicated remote mentoring session was provided to a startup selected for the exploration program Next Step Japan, an initiative powered by German Accelerator and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
• May-June: the encognize proprietary framework "Japan B2B Collaboration Readiness Assessment" (J-B2B.CRA) was revised and released under version 3.1. Designed for B2B FinTech, RegTech, InsurTech and CyberSec startups entering Japan, this qualitative assessment framework evaluates their chances of success in developing a successful collaboration engagement with Japanese corporations over 5 key dimensions: Organization Credibility, Solution Usability, Governance Maturity, Market Entry Agility and Japan Fluency. If you want to know more or are interested in a free initial assessment (eligibility conditions apply), please contact us here.

From direct and indirect contributions to the delivery of educational sessions as part of encognize .SYNAPTIK services to expending our support to innovative startups entering the Japanese market under encognize .FASTFORWARD services, the first quarter of 2020 has been very active for our Japan X-tech Force consultants.

• January 17: workshop on the topic of collaboration gap between corporations and startups delivered to the Department of Global Innovation Studies of Toyo University for the Creatoyo week
• January 20: presentation of the IRTA x Protiviti global study "An Urgent Call for KYC Optimization", realized with encognize direct contribution, at the second gathering of the SupTech/RegTech Committee of the FinTech Association Japan (FAJ), with the active participation of Kito-san (FAJ & Crowd Realty KK), Higo-san (FAJ & TRUSTDOCK KK), Homma-san (FINANTIX GK) and Ogawa-san (EY Japan)
• February: onboarding of Optimity with a mission to support their ongoing projects in Japan as well as to accelerate their domestic business growth. Optimity is a comprehensive health solution focused on proactive wellness for individual users and business-enabler for corporations especially in the Insurance industry
• March 02: participation to the preparation and delivery of an event from La French Tech Tokyo featuring the most promising French startups known as NEXT40, with the support of the French Embassy in Tokyo, including live presentation from the NEXT40 companies already operating in Japan
• March 26:  support to the final FE Credit Vietnam Xcelerate Demo Day remote presentation of AdviceRobo, one of the only 10 startups selected to this program developed in partnership with MEDICI.
• March: encognize becomes an official Service Partner of Plug and Play Japan. As Service Partner of Plug and Play Japan, encognize commits to support the domestic business development of the selected startups selected by offering a Japan Market Entry seminar and preferential service pricing.

Additionally, under the global COVID-19 sanitary crisis, encognize has decided to put in place specific "Japan Business Continuity" packages to support startups or scale-ups with no/limited operational teams in Japan and in the need of Japanese-speaking Business Coordinators to help manage ongoing discussions or project during lockdown and travel restrictions. Contact us here for more information and we will check how we can help your business move forward in Japan despite the adversarial context.

At encognize, we are convinced that every one, regardless of age, gender, citizenship... can learn from others and contribute to solve problems from the "real world" by sharing openly and discussing constructively their respective ideas and perspectives.
When it comes to innovation or entrepreneurship, one of the most obvious challenges we observe is how difficult it can be for startup and entrepreneurs to successfully collaborate with large corporations.
Therefore, we felt very privileged to engage with students from Toyo University during the Creatoyo week, a five-day program organized by the Department of Global Innovation Studies around one core theme: "understand creativity in a global context", and discuss how to solve the collaboration gaps between large corporations and smaller, emerging, innovative companies.