Contact: Susan Parini, Japan Society of Northern California Program Officer 415-986-4383 or Siejen Yin-Stevenson, Assistant Director, US-Asia Technology Management Center 650-724-0096

The Innovation in Japan – U.S. Business and Technology Awards program <http://www.usjinnovate.org> today announces the winners of the second annual Salesforce.com Emerging Leader Awards:

Salesforce.com Emerging Leader Award – U.S.:       Square Inc.
Salesforce.com Emerging Leader Award – Japan:  Acucela Inc.

This program, known also as the Japan – U.S. Innovation Awards, recognizes significant innovations by one Japanese and one U.S. company in each of three award categories: Emerging Leader, Intrapreneur, and World Changer. Winners of the Intrapreneur and World Changer Awards will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Salesforce.com Emerging Leader Awards go to young, dynamically growing, entrepreneurial companies built around an innovation that is already demonstrating impressive success and that has the potential to become a true world changer. U.S. winner Square Inc. has developed a mobile payment system that allows anyone, anywhere to accept credit cards. By making the entire transaction experience simple and cost-effective, small businesses and individuals are able to easily and effectively grow their businesses. Japan winner Acucela Inc., a U.S. based biotech company built around the results of years of joint Japan-U.S. research and development, is developing a novel drug candidate, ACU-4429. ACU-4429, currently in Phase 2a clinical development, is being investigated as an oral treatment for dry age-related macular degeneration.

The Awards will be presented at the Japan – U.S. Innovation Awards Day Symposium on June 29, 2012, from 1:30 – 6:30 pm at Stanford University; for details and to register see <http://www.usjinnovate.org>. Accepting the award on behalf of Acucela will be Chairman, President and CEO Ryo Kubota, M.D., Ph.D., who writes “I share [this award] gratefully and thankfully with the employees of Acucela, who work tirelessly every day toward our goal of finding answers to blinding eye diseases.” In the Symposium, Dr. Kubota will participate in a panel discussion on entrepreneurial innovation with Square Co-Founder Randy Reddig, who leads the company’s new market development. According to Reddig, “Square is focused on changing how people make and take payments, democratizing credit card acceptance for people everywhere. We look forward to offering the many benefits of Square to local businesses around the world.” Also participating in the Symposium will be key executives from the award winning companies in other categories, along with noted futurist Paul Saffo. U.S. Ambassador to Japan John H. Roos is also an enthusiastic supporter of the Awards program.

The Japan – U.S. Innovation Awards program and the Awards Day Symposium are organized by the Japan Society of Northern California in cooperation with the Stanford University US-Asia Technology Management Center. The selection process is carried out by a distinguished 40-person Innovation Advisory Council (IAC) composed of venture capitalists, academic experts and business persons in Japan and the U.S.; see <http://www.usjinnovate.org/innovation-advisory-council-membership-2012/>.

Salesforce.com has sponsored the Emerging Leader Awards since their inception last year. Last year’s winners of this award were Tesla Motors (U.S.) and SanBio (Japan).

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An evening with Japanese Social Entrepreneur experts

The Japan Society of Northern California held a panel discussion evening with leading experts in Social Entrepreneurs as the first kick-off event for the 2012 Japan-US Innovation on January 26, 2012.

Panelists included:

• Hideyuki Inoue, Professor, Keio University Professor & Founder and President,  Social Venture Partners Tokyo (SVP Tokyo)
• Yoshiaki Ishikawa, Tohoku Research Division Manager, ETIC (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities)
• Masahisa Kogure, Founder, Table for Two
• Barbara D. Kibbe, Chief Operating Officer, Salesforce.com Foundation

Dr. Richard B. Dasher, Director, US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University moderated the event.

Mr. Inoue founded SVP Tokyo in 2003 as the first Asian member organization of Social Venture Partners International (SVPI), a network of citizen philanthropists seeking to create lasting social change.   The mission of SVP Tokyo is to support social  entrepreneurs to reach their business goals and provide management expertise in areas such as accounting and IT. Mr. Inoue is calling for a more systematic change, and the need for more connection and association between social entrepreneurs in both Japan and the US, particularly in Northern California.

According to Mr. Ishikawa, prior to the March 11 disaster, Tohoku had experienced a decades-long drain of young professionals, as the young moved to urban areas to seek professional and personal goals. Tohoku has become one of the regions with the highest percentage of elderly people in Japan. To help reverse this trend, Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities (ETIC) is leading a program of entrepreneurial mentoring and fellowship to create jobs, and catalyze economic activity.  The mission of ETIC in Tohoku is to support local leaders and help create a thriving community to the region.  Ishikawa-san is hopeful that the 3/11/2011 will be a new beginning for the Tohoku area, and will be a stimulus for positive change for Japan as we move forward.

Table for Two (TFT) is a Tokyo-based nonprofit that ties up with corporate cafeterias to achieve two opposing yet growing problems in different environments: to fight obesity in developed countries and to overcome hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.  Mr. Kogure introduced the simple and unique concept of TFT : for every healthy TFT-designated meals sold in over 450 corporate/govt cafeterias in Japan, 20 yen is then spent to subsidize nutritious lunches for school-aged children in sub-Saharan Africa. TFT has gone global since 2008 and is looking to increase their network in the US through food establishments and university cafeterias.

Ms. Kibbe explained the basis of the Salesforce Foundation’s 1/1/1 model: Take just 1% of time, 1% of product and 1% of equity and give it to social-change organizations so they can better equip communities.   Salesforece as a company is very committed to giving back to the community and to encourage the spirit of social entrepreneurism to their corporate employees.  She also noted how the 3 Japanese panelists are great examples of successful social entrepreneurs doing good for their communities.

The evening panel event was well attended, with many questions addressed to the panelists after the panel discussion. The event was co-sponsored by the Japan Policy Research Institute at USF Center for the Pacific Rim, Table for Two USA, US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University and Keizai Society. We are planning another  “2012 Innovation Initiative” salon for spring 2012.  Stay tuned.

The World Changer award recognizes outstanding innovations by U.S. and Japanese companies whose work is changing the world we live in.   DeNA and Twitter both demonstrate how a new technology can profoundly affect how we communicate and how we live.

Dai Watanabe, CEO of DeNA Global, Inc., accepted the award on behalf of the Japanese mobile game firm, which is preparing to go worldwide with its groundbreaking ‘Mobage’ platform merging mobile phone gaming and social networking.  DeNA has acquired San Francisco mobile game powerhouse ngmoco:) as the first step in its global expansion.

James Kondo, Twitter Manager for Japan, accepted the award on behalf of the San Francisco-based firm, and talked about the critical role Twitter played after the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami when traditional communication networks collapsed.  Japan is one of Twitter’s largest user bases in the world, where the 140-word Tweet format meshes perfectly with information-dense Japanese written characters.

“The Word Changer awards are especially exciting and timely,” says Dr. Richard Dasher, director of Stanford’s US-Asia Technology Management Center and a member of the Japan-US Innovation Awards steering committee. “DeNA moved into major global expansion this year through its acquisition of the U.S. firm ngmoco:) and Twitter has been all over the world news with its role in facilitating Japan’s post-disaster recovery.”

DeNA and Twitter were joined onstage at the inaugural Japan-US Innovation Day conference by Salesforce.com Emerging Leader Award winners SanBio and Tesla Motors, and by Intrapreneur Award winner Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation.

Nobuo Toda, recently retired chairman of Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation and driver of the MRJ project, will accept the award on behalf of the company.  He will discuss the MRJ and his company’s intrapreneurism on-stage with Allen Miner, chairman of SunBridge Corporation and chairman of the Japan-US Innovation Awards steering committee.

The Mitsubishi Regional Jet, Japan’s first serious contender in civil aviation since the 1960s, is a family of 70- to 90-seat next-generation regional jets featuring state-of-the-art aerodynamic design, noise analysis technologies and a game-changing engine to cut fuel consumption, noise, and emissions. The jet is designed to improve airline competitiveness and profitability by combining top-class operational economy with outstanding cabin comfort. The sleek aircraft features four-abreast seats, large overhead bins and an innovative slim seat for passenger comfort.

The Intrapreneur Award, one of the three Japan-US Innovation Award categories, recognizes large global enterprises not usually included in discussions about entrepreneurism. The winning companies must have brought to market a significant internally driven innovation, rather than growing through acquisitions.

US and Japanese innovation patterns still differ, SunBridge chairman Miner observes, with many Japanese companies continuing to invest in internal R&D while US firms increasingly rely on bringing in technology from the outside. The MRJ project is a model case of a major enterprise working to encourage entrepreneurism and startup-style risk-taking within its own organization.

The winners in the third and final category – World Changers – will be announced next week on the eve the July 15 conference.

SanBio Co-CEO and Co-Founder Keita Mori and Tesla Motors CTO and Co-Founder JB Straubel will be on hand to accept the awards and discuss their companies’ work at the 2011 Japan-US Innovation Day conference on the campus of Stanford University on July 15^th.

The Japan-US Innovation in Business and Technology Awards, a new initiative by the Japan Society of Northern California in cooperation with the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University and other Northern California partners, highlights the dynamism of innovative US and Japanese companies whose business models straddle the Pacific.  Steve Jurvetson, Manager Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, will deliver the keynote on “Meaningful Innovation.”

“It is an honor to be asked to share my thoughts on ‘Meaningful Innovation’ with such an auspicious group of award winners,” says Jurvetson. “I congratulate the outstanding companies from both countries that have achieved such noteworthy innovation in their business or technology.”

Salesforce.com, an industry leader in cloud-based CRM with a major presence in Japan, sponsors the Emerging Leaders Awards, one of three awards to be presented at the conference.   The Emerging Leader Awards spotlight young, dynamic, entrepreneurial companies in existence 5-10 years whose founders and innovations set them apart from their peers.

Japan Emerging Leader winner SanBio is a biotech company developing new stem cell products to spur regeneration of brain cells damaged by strokes, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and other trauma.  Established in the US with Japanese investment and building on innovative research by Japanese universities, SanBio demonstrates a new model for trans-Pacific US-Japan business linkages as it opens the door to potentially revolutionary therapies for healing crippling diseases of the brain.

US Emerging Leader winner Tesla Motors, founded by Elon Musk, JB Straubel and other Silicon Valley engineers, put electric vehicles on the map when it released the Tesla Roadster, a high-performance supercar that flipped conventional wisdom about electrical vehicles.  The company, with production facilities at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, [former Toyota-GM NUMMI plant], is preparing to release its Model S premium sedan.  Tesla works closely with Japanese auto and battery companies and has its Asian headquarters and showroom in Tokyo’s fashionable Aoyama district.

SanBio and Tesla were selected from a field of six finalists by an advisory council of 30 Silicon Valley and Japanese experts drawn from business, academe and the non-profit sector based on competing trans-Pacific videoconference pitches.  Battery maker SEEO and biotech Seattle Genetics were the US runner-ups, along with robotic limb developer CYBERDYNE and image processing software firm Morpho from Japan.

“It was a close vote among six truly outstanding companies,” says Japan Society President Dana Lewis. “They are all companies to watch in the future.”

Awards will also be presented in two other categories to be announced soon: World Changers and Intrapreneurs.

Salesforce.com, which recently unveiled plans for an innovative global headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district, manages customer information for more than 97,700 companies, governmental agencies and non-profit organizations. It has many clients in Japan, including the mammoth Japan Post. Competitors in the Salesforce.com Emerging Leaders category were nominated by the 30-member strong Innovation Advisory Committee of business, nonprofit and academic leaders in Japan and Silicon Valley, and the winning companies will receive the awards at the Japan-US Innovation Day conference at Stanford University on July 15, 2011.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – (Marketwire – June 8, 2011) – Registration is now open for the first annual Japan-US Innovation Awards and Japan-US Innovation Day conference, a new initiative by the Japan Society of Northern California to highlight the dynamic synergy in US-Japan innovation.

Steve Jurvetson, managing director of Silicon Valley VC Draper Fisher Jurvetson, will be keynote speaker at the July 15 event at the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center on the campus of Stanford University, launching what will be an annual event recognizing highly innovative companies on both sides of the Pacific. Honored as “The Valley’s Sharpest VC” by Business 2.0, Jurvetson has been featured on the covers of Worth, Red Herring, and Fortune magazines.

Senior executives of Japanese and US award recipients will join in panel discussions and presentations on innovation during the half-day conference.

At a time when international attention is focused on the lingering aftereffects of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, the Japan-US Innovation Awards showcase the remarkable creativity and dynamism of Japanese and US companies creating new technologies and business models that build off US-Japan synergies. The Awards will be presented to one Japanese and US company each in three categories:

• World Changers – companies whose ground-breaking technologies are changing the world
• Intrapreneurs – companies who demonstrate that entrepreneurism can come from within an established organization
• Emerging Leaders – the World Changer companies of the future

A 30-member Innovation Advisory Committee of business, academic and nonprofit leaders from Northern California and Japan will select the awardees.  Allen Miner, founder and CEO of SunBridge Corporation, chairs the Innovation Steering Committee overseeing the award process.

“Innovation is now at the heart of business between the US and Japan,” says Dr. Richard Dasher, Director of Stanford’s US-Asia Technology Management Center and a Steering Committee member. “The Awards recognize outstanding companies that are bringing to market exciting new ideas that will have an impact for years to come.”

Conference sponsors include: Bingham McCutchen, BNY Mellon Wealth Management/Mellon Capital Management, Presidio Ventures, Squire Sanders & Dempsey and Union Bank.

Founded in 1905, the Japan Society of Northern California is the second oldest Japan-America society in the country, and the West Coast’s leading public forum on US-Japan ties. Its mission is to promote all aspects of US-Japan relations in a changing world through events, programs and classes.

Contact:
Dana Lewis, President
Tel: 415-986-4383
Email: dlewis@usajapan.org

Please save the date for this important event, which will highlight the extraordinary innovative accomplishments of Japanese and U.S. companies whose creative vision straddles the Pacific Ocean.

Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director of leading VC Draper Fisher Jurvetson, will be the keynote speaker at the Japan-US Innovation Day Conference where the new awards will be presented.  Mr. Jurvetson has been honored as “The Valley’s Sharpest VC” by Business 2.0, profiled in the New York Times Magazine and featured on the covers of Worth, Red Herring, and Fortune magazines.  He was named one of “Tech’s Best Venture Investors” by Forbes, and one of the “Ten Most Influential VCs” by the VC Journal.

The Japan-US Innovation Awards are designed to recognize the creative and dynamism of Japanese and US companies that have brought to market outstanding innovative technologies and business models, and for whom the trans-Pacific bridge between Japan and the US intersection is an integral part of their vision.  The annual Awards will be presented to one Japanese and US company each in three different award categories:

• World Changers –players on the world stage whose ground-breaking work is already changing the world we live in
• Intrapreneurs – long established US and Japanese firms who prove that innovation and entrepreneurism can come from within
• Emerging Leaders – the Japan-US Innovation Awards Innovation Advisory Council’s best bets on the World Changers of the future

Top representatives of the winning companies will be on hand July 15th to accept the awards and discuss their companies’ groundbreaking work on stage.

Please watch for future announcements on event registration and conference participants. We look forward to seeing you this summer at the launch of the Japan-US Innovation Awards.

Japan-US Innovation Awards and Japan-US Innovation Day Conference
Mackenzie Room, 3rd Floor, Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center
Stanford University
2:00pm – 6:30pm, July 15th, 2011