Michi Kohno, President and CEO, took part in a symposium titled “Tokyo Olympic Games and Smart City” organized by Japan Association for Planning Administration, which was held on May 31 in the Korakuen Campus of Chuo University.

Michi was one of the 5 panelists of the panel discussion subjected “Smart City Schemes and Olympic”, with the coordinator being Professor Takashi Onishi, the Chairman of Science Council of Japan, and the other panelists being Professor Yasushi Aoyama, Professor of Department of Public Policy Study, Meiji University, and former Deputy Governor of Tokyo Metropolis; Kan Suzuki, former Deputy Minister of State for Education and Sciences; Professor Hiroshi Yamamoto, Professor of Hosei University, and former News Commentator of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Bureau); and Mr. Teruyuki Ohno, Executive Director of Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, and former Head of Environmental Bureau of Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

Michi postulated that smart cities are the ways of solving individual problems of cities, and that the Olympic is an opportunity of showing Tokyo’s “Smart” features to the world through the visitors and broadcasting. He also advocated, based on the global trends of paying more attention to the resilience of the cities against natural disasters, that Tokyo should show its preparedness to the NEXT disasters.