Marintec Grand Prix 2023 From the Greetings from the President of the Jury
Ryuta Takeda, Director, Center for National Policy Research, LIBANES Corporation
Who will provide leadership and solve the challenges of the sea?
My name is Takeda from RIVANES, and I am the chairman of the jury today. Today is the day of the Marine Tech Grand Prix, and I am sure that all the finalists are well prepared. Before we get to your enthusiastic presentations, I would like to talk about how this Tech Planter is a place where we can solve global issues and make the world a better place.
Solving the Earth's challenges may be so big a theme that you may not know where to start. However, I believe that the people gathered here today are those who are willing to take on any challenge, no matter how big, related to the oceans and hydrosphere, and are willing to take the first step toward solutions.
The ocean is the earth itself. Why did I say "the ocean is the earth" even though 30% of the earth is land?
The earth was born 4.6 billion years ago, and the oceans were born 4.4 billion years ago. If we compare the earth to a single human being, we can say that for 95% of that time, the ocean has been like a companion that has lived with the life of the earth. In other words, solving the ocean's challenges is closely intertwined with solving the Earth's challenges. We urge you to think of taking on the challenges of the oceans as taking on the challenges of the Earth.
Eight hundred million years after the birth of the oceans, life was born. Much later, land animals were born, and finally, we, human beings, appeared on the scene. The mother sea, the sea that has given birth to living creatures, the sea that purifies various things, and the clean sea. However, only 200 years after the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, human activities have created a mountain of challenges for the oceans.
Who did it? What would you answer? "I don't know." "Did we/we do it?" 'Maybe people from a generation or two ago were involved,' or 'Who owns the ocean in the first place?' ....... The ocean is connected to the world and does not belong to anyone. That is where the challenges are piling up.
Who will take the leadership in solving marine issues? That is the new age of marine tech, and that is the mindset of those who will be solving the challenges of the future. It doesn't belong to anyone, and no one asked me to do it. But that is where the big challenge lies. Contributing to the oceans that humanity has been indebted to and solving the challenges of the earth. This is what Marintec is all about. We will work hard and spend many hours in the future to think this through and come up with a solution. I want to be such a tech planter.
Tackling the challenges of the big, deep ocean with a collection of science and technology
The challenges of the ocean are big. They are big and deep; they cannot be solved by one company's technology or one person's technology or thoughts alone. That is why we combine science and technology to create a collective body and strive to solve the issues. Each person brings his/her own technology and assets to solve the issues. This is the concept behind Tech Planter, which RIVERNESS launched in 2014. Solve unsolved issues (deep issues) with the collective power of science and technology (deep tech). Let's make this happen with Marintec.
Attracted by this idea, more than 3,500 teams from Japan and around the world have gathered so far. Technologies originating in Japan and Asia are connected to the world. We want to work together, we want to use the sea area of this country or region, we want to use this site, we want to combine these technologies. If we have such a desire, collaboration will be born all over the world among the teams gathered in Tech Planter.
Finalists, Aramnai, judges, partners, and Rivanes. We have all been working hard to solve the challenges of the oceans. As a result, eight business models have been created so far, including a project to develop technology for seafloor exploration (DeSET) launched in 2017 and a project to create a marine debris reduction business (IKKAKU) launched in 2019.
Some may think that ocean assignments are time consuming and difficult. But a lot can happen in a year. Many things came out of last year's finalists' presentations.
Our partners Asahi Yukizai and Riverness, and the Alamnai team at MarineTech, have launched a project to create a new system for inshore aquaculture. Inoka and Focus Systems have launched the "Shinagawa Coral Reef Lab" as a project to nurture the children who will lead Marine Tech in the future, and MizLinks has been selected for the Japan-ASEAN demonstration project that RIVANES is now pursuing with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. In addition, ARK, Tsuneishi Group CVC, and MOL Group CVC have formed a capital alliance. Even in just one year, many things can happen.
All members sweat brains to promote knowledge manufacturing.
In order to launch a series of such projects, in 2023, Rivanes changed its corporate brand from "Knowledge Platform" to "Knowledge Manufacturing". So far, more than 3,500 teams have gathered in Tech Planter and many projects have been created to solve global issues. We want to create more projects that solve global issues. From now on, we will take more initiative in creating projects. This represents our determination.
Knowledge manufacturing is "creating new knowledge by combining knowledge with knowledge. Your presentation, sense of challenge (Question), and passion (Passion) are knowledge. Let's combine them to create new measures to solve unsolved problems. TechPlanter is a knowledge manufacturing site. Today, not only the finalists who will give presentations, but also the judges, partner companies, and RIVERNESS, all the members here will sweat their brains out to give birth to projects that will solve the world's problems.
Dear Finalists. It does not have to be a good presentation. You don't have to be at a loss for words, you don't have to be worldwide. It is okay if you are in a 5-meter radius of the world. What have you seen, what sense of challenge do you have, and how do you want to solve it? Please hit the questions and passions that you really want to solve.
Judges. Please trust your intuition, sensitivity, and outlook on life and dive in. If you find the presentation interesting or inspiring, even if it does not necessarily match your company's policy, go ahead and create your project. We, the judges, are also on the side of the finalists to be judged. Tech Planter is a competition, but what we want to do is not to decide who is the best and who is the worst. It is a discussion. How could this project go forward, how could we do this? Let's have many such discussions.
And all the communicators in Libanes. Let us sweat our brains out the most. Please go and ask the finalists and the judges yourself if you can try something like this.
And let's create a project to change the world's issues together.
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