TOKYO – SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024, a large-scale month-long global startup and tech event focusing on Tokyo’s sustainable future, is well underway to demonstrate and explore technologies and solutions for the development of urban models.
It is bringing together world-leading startups, the heads of major cities from five continents and half a million expected visitors for an array of tech-driven exhibitions and meetings — as Tokyo’s answer to premier global innovation events such as S×SW in the U.S., Slush in Finland and Viva Tech in France.
https://www.sushi-tech-tokyo2024.metro.tokyo.lg.jp
Thousands of people have flocked daily to the ever-developing Tokyo Bay area for SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024 since it opened there on April 27. “Look, touch and listen and taste. I want you to use all the five senses to feel the future,” Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko said at the
event’s opening ceremony.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), hosting the event based on its concept of creating “sustainable new values,” has transformed the waterfront into a veritable fairground.
The TMG has been promoting “Sustainable High City Tech Tokyo, or “SusHi Tech Tokyo” for short, both locally and abroad to showcase the many attractions Tokyo has to offer, including a flying car and a wind-powered boat that generates “green hydrogen.” It has also been highlighting the challenges of solving urban issues and realizing a sustainable high-tech city. SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024, expected to attract 500,000 visitors, is creating Tokyo-based innovations and presenting Tokyo as a model for the city of the future.
By hosting SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024, the TMG aims to increase the number of startups in Tokyo, inspire new solutions to urban issues through inter-city cooperation, and promote the social implementation of cutting-edge technologies in Tokyo.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=V6Zlu_f3TI0%3Ffeature%3Doe
In addition, holding the three programs simultaneously — the Showcase Program (April 27 – May 26), Global Startup Program (May 15-16) and the City Leaders Program (May 15-17) — is certain to create a synergy between city leaders, startup companies, venture capital investors, companies with cutting-edge technology, and other players in the startup ecosystem, enabling all of them to work together toward creating a sustainable city.
“We will make it a platform for creating Tokyo-originated new ideas,” Governor Koike said, “as participants in the three programs meet and network with each other.”
Showcase Program:
The Showcase Program immerses visitors in what the TMG describes as a “full sensory experience of the Tokyo of 2050” at four venues in the bay area.
It invites children and adults alike to maneuver delivery drones and watch presentations by a robot on the history of robot evolution. A sturdy mobility robot, which you can ride and control from its cockpit, is one of the Showcase attractions each categorized under Food, Tech, Mobility, Activity and Entertainment. It is hard to miss a virtual restaurant where the images of innovative foods created by projection mapping are served by a holographic “ghost,” who walks you through alternative ingredients such as vegetable-derived meat.
Apart from flying car demonstrations and operations of the hydrogen-producing boat, “delicious and earth-friendly” foods, including plant-based Italian cuisine, are on the program. A variety of next-generation mobility vehicles such as the “Raptor” tricycle with separable upper and lower parts can be test driven. Also available is a ride on the “Space Elevator” with a virtual 360-degree view of the space.
Website (in English)
https://www.sushitechtokyo2024-sc.metro.tokyo.lg.jp
Global Startup Program:
Some 4,000 participants representing startup ecosystems around the world are expected to gather at the Tokyo Big Sight convention hall on the waterfront for what is billed as “Asia’s largest innovation conference.” More than 130 presenters are booked to speak in 40-plus sessions on the themes of “Imagining the City of the Future”, “Discussing the Future of Technology” and “Developing Startups.”
Over 500 companies from 43 countries and regions have signed up for a pitch contest. Nearly 430 startups as well as 47 countries, regions and cities are lined up as booth exhibitors.
Website (in English)
https://sushitech-startup.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en
https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/topics/2024/documents/en_0424_01_02.pdf
City Leaders Program:
The leaders of more than 40 cities discuss how to solve common urban issues, such as safe and secure cities, inclusive and just societies, and environment, and reaffirm cooperation among themselves and issue a joint statement. The meeting, which can also be viewed online, is to take place at Hotel New Otani Tokyo located in central Tokyo.
The conference’s theme is: “A better future through innovation for a just and sustainable world”
Website (in English)
https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/topics/2024/documents/en_0424_01_03.pdf
