Now accepting nominations for 2026! If you have any companies to nominate for next year's symposium, please fill out this form!
Japan - U.S.
INNOVATION AWARDS
Recognizing the best of innovation and entrepreneurship
in Japan – U.S. business
Save the Date! : Friday, July 16th, 2026
Thank you for joining us at this year's Japan-U.S. Innovation Awards!
Stay tuned for more updates about next year's Symposium!
Friday, July 16, 2026
Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center
10:30am – 5:00pm
2025 Keynote Speaker
John L. Hennessy | Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars and President Emeritus of Stanford University, James F. and Mary Lynn Gibbons Professor in the School of Engineering, Chairman of Alphabet
John L. Hennessy is co-founder and Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, the largest, university-wide, fully-endowed graduate fellowship in the world. He is Chairman of the Board of Alphabet and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Hennessy has been on the faculty of Stanford University since 1977 and previously served as the President of the university for 16 years after roles including chair of Computer Science, dean of the School of Engineering, and university provost. He co-founded MIPS Computer Systems and Atheros Communications. He and Dave Patterson were awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Prize for 2017 and the National Academy of Engineering Draper Prize in 2022.
2025 Special Presentation
Albert Webson
Research Scientist, Anthropic
Albert Webson is a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, where he works on reinforcement learning algorithms and infrastructure for agentic coding. He was previously a research scientist at Google DeepMind and one of the main individual contributors to reinforcement learning and pretraining for Gemini and several early instruction-tuned large language models. He completed a PhD in computer science and an MA in philosophy from Brown University.
Darren Kimura
CEO and President,
AI Squared
Darren Kimura is the CEO and President of AI Squared, which helps enterprises integrate AI securely and efficiently with applications they already use. He previously served as CEO of LiveAction, Energy Industries, and Solar Power Technology, scaling each from idea to exit. He holds 14 patents, is an alumnus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Artificial Intelligence at Claremont Graduate University.
Ajit Balakrishna
Senior Director PMTS,
Computational Products and Solutions
Ajit Balakrishna is a Sr. Director, Principal Member of Technical Staff at Applied Materials, where he works on product development using several physics simulation and data tools. He has worked in this field for nearly 30 years and has over 25 patents. Over the last decade, he has integrated AI/ML methods to accelerate learnings from simulations. He completed a PhD from the University of Minnesota and a BTech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay.
Divya Sudhakar
Partner,
Geodesic Capital
Divya Sudhakar is a Partner at Geodesic Capital, where she leads investments in enterprise software and artificial intelligence. Her career spans early- and growth-stage investing at firms including Intel Capital and In-Q-Tel, the strategic venture arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community. She began her career in investment banking at Credit Suisse and later invested in public and private markets at Oaktree Capital. Divya holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from UCLA. She’s passionate about technology’s impact on the enterprise and spends her free time exploring art, food, and the outdoors in the Bay Area.
What’s New
Waymo and teamLab to Receive 2025 SunBridge John Thomas Emerging Leader Awards
The Japan–U.S. Innovation Awards Program announced today that Waymo (USA) and teamLab (Japan) have been selected as the 2025 recipients of the SunBridge John Thomas Emerging Leader Award. The awards recognize one innovative, high-growth company from each country that is poised to transform a major industry or value chain.
Innovation Salon
Innovation Salon – Tokyo Event: シリコンバレー最前線・AIで変わる日本企業のビジネス戦略
The evolution of AI is no longer limited to a few IT companies, but is influencing a wide range of fields including retail, e-commerce, supply chain, and fintech, and is fundamentally changing the way business is conducted.
Through the networks and case studies in Silicon Valley, a resident and former resident of Silicon Valley will explain how large Japanese companies should embrace this trend of AI and establish a competitive advantage on a practical level.
