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    Cutting Edge Internet Technology and its Emerging Businesses

    THE NEW CONTEXT CONFERENCE, an annual conference hosted by Digital Garage co-founder and Director of MIT Media Lab, Joi Ito, will be held this year on July 25-26 in Tokyo, Japan. Held since 2005 the conference is aimed at those interested Internet Technology and the businesses which emerges from it. Since 2011, the conference has been held annually in both Tokyo and San Francisco, Digital Garage’s US branch.
    Marking its fifteenth edition, DG Lab (Digital Garage’s R&D innovation center) will cover upcoming technologies: Biotechnology (Day 1) and Blockchain (Day 2). Globally acclaimed leading researchers, entrepreneurs, and experts of the field will come together to discuss and debate on these cutting edge trends.

    Co-host
    Digital Garage, Inc.
    Kakaku.com, Inc.
    Credit Saison Co., Ltd.

    Co-sponsors
    Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
    TIS Inc.

    Media Sponsors
    Nikkei FinTech
    DIGIDAY
    Nikkei Biotechnology & Business
    WIRED.jp
    MIT Technology Review

    Special Cooperation
    Mori Building Co., Ltd.

    Co-hosts: Digital Garage, Inc.; Kakaku.com, Inc.; Credit Saison Co., Ltd.
    Co-sponsors: Daiwa Securities Group Inc.; TIS Inc.
    Host: Joi Ito
    Location: Toranomon Hills Forum
    Toranomon Hills Mori Tower 5th Floor, 1-23-3 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

    Dates:
    July 25, 2017(Tue): Biotechnology
    July 26, 2017(Wed) : Blockchain

    View Speakers


    What's new

    7/14: Eric Lombrozo, Greg Li, Ian Miers and Cory Fields have been added to our list of speakers for Day 2 ”Real Power and Evolution of Blockchain”.

    Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for latest information.


    DAY1 Intersections Between IT and Biotechnology and the Future They Foretell

    Based on the development of AI and sensor technology in recent years, discussions on the future of biotechnology will be held through the perspectives of coming innovations in the field, the environment in the US, where ecosystems focused on incubation centers specialized in the biotechnology field are evolving, trends in Japan, and the latest news from startup corporations who are leading the technological revolution through innovative approaches.


    DAY2 Real Power and Evolution of Blockchain

    2017 is the year of transition from early adoption to construction of social ecosystem for blockchain technology. Recently, the idea of related business and various derivative technologies have appeared one after another and it is sometimes expressed as a technological revolution since the Internet. Is it a suddenly emerging new technology?
    In this conference, we aim to learn from past history then re-think real power and desirable evolution of blockchain technology. NCC 2017 Tokyo gives audience understandings of historical view, lessons from the first wave, roadmap toward social ecosystem, upcoming disruptions and blockchain x AI.


    NCC will start in

    Schedule

    * In the evening of each day, we will be hosting a reception party at the location of the conference.
    All attendees Day 1 and Day 2 are cordially invited for purposes of networking. The price is included in the ticket.
    * Please note that conference agenda and speakers may change

    • Day 1 7/25

      Intersections Between IT and Biotechnology and the Future They Foretell

    • Kaoru Hayashi
      09:30
      Greetings
      By Kaoru Hayashi
      Representative Director, President Executive Officer and Group CEO, Digital Garage, Inc.

    • We will discuss about the background, the current status, and the future of the new innovations that are arising in the present digital age through the combination of biotechnology and information technology.

    • Hiroaki Kitano
      10:00
      Keynote 2.
      Nobel Turing Challenge
      By Hiroaki Kitano
      President and CEO, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.

    • In the future, we may be able to design all kinds of things through synthetic biology and AI. There will be “Digital Medicine,” which has the same effects for specific illnesses as current medicines. We will examine the current innovations in development.
      Talk Patrick Boyle (Ginkgo Bioworks)
      Talk LeRoux Jooste (Akili Interactive Labs Inc.)
      Talk Eli Lyons (Tupac Bio)
      Panel
      Hiroaki Kitano (Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.)
      Patrick Boyle
      LeRoux Jooste
      Eli Lyons
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • 11:45
      (Lunch Time)

    • The new wave of “DIY Bio” or “Kitchen Bio” is coming. People from industries such as computer science and hardware have started spending their time in biotechnology during the weekends. In this session, we will introduce NPOs and VCs who support these people and their ideas as DIY bio-hackers.
      Talk Tito Jankowski (Impossible Labs)
      Talk Takayuki Ito (YCAM InterLab)
      Talk Ron Shigeta (IndieBio)
      Panel
      Tito Jankowski
      Ron Shigeta
      Takayuki Ito
      Georg Tremmel (BioClub)
      Phil Libin (All Turtles)
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • For entrepreneurship in the biotech field, there are many cases where wet laboratories are needed, and the need for large initial investments causes a bottleneck situation. In the US, bio-incubation centers are established to support for equipment and capital in order to solve these problems, so these obstacles to entrepreneurship are overcome. The leading people who are building these kind of ecosystems will talk about these situations.
      Talk Masaru Tomita (Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University)
      Talk Toru Seo (Pfizer Inc.)
      Talk Douglas Crawford (QB3@953)
      Panel
      Masaru Tomita
      Toru Seo
      Douglas Crawford
      Shinobu Suzuki (Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim Co., Ltd.)
      <Moderator> Bharatt Chowrira

    • Data related to healthcare, intestinal bacteria, and genetic information (which could also considered as the ultimate kind type of personal information) is being collected through various methods. We have invited Japan’s leaders in this field and they will speak about the usefulness of this data and the novel services arising through its use.
      Talk Shinji Fukuda (Metagen, Inc.)
      Talk Shoko Takahashi (Genequest Inc.)
      Talk Takeru Hiki (Welby, Inc.)
      Panel
      Shinji Fukuda
      Shoko Takahashi
      Takeru Hiki
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • Eric Elenko, Ph.D. from PureTech, a future of pharmaceutical company that develops services and creates new technologies by combining different fields, will speak about the ways of nurturing leading startups.

    • By examining the wide variety of biotech’s applications and the next generation technology, we bring together experts to debate about how our everyday lives will change in the future and consider the social ethics of these technologies.
      Talk Toshiyuki Iwata (PeptiDream Inc.)
      Talk Marko Ahtisaari (Sync Project)
      Talk Eric Elenko(Sonde Health)
      Panel
      Eric Elenko
      Marko Ahtisaari
      Toshiyuki Iwata
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • 18:30
      Reception Party

    • Day 2 7/26

      Real Power and Evolution of Blockchain

    • Kaoru Hayashi
      09:30
      Greetings
      By Kaoru Hayashi
      Representative Director, President Executive Officer and Group CEO, Digital Garage, Inc.

    • Joi Ito
      09:40
      Opening Remarks
      By Joi Ito
      Director and Co-Founder, Digital Garage, Inc./ Director, MIT Media Lab

    • Rusty Russell
      10:00
      Keynote
      Symmetries between Linux and Bitcoin(Blockchain): The First 8 years
      By Rusty Russell
      Infrastructure Tech Engineer, Blockstream

    • Blockchain technology is a great combination of past technologies and the result of past continuous developments of information technologies. We can learn real power and meaning of Blockchain from history of technology development. At the first session, we study the real power and meanings of blockchain technology.
      Talk Shin’ichiro Matsuo (MIT Media Lab)
      Talk Hideki Sunahara (Graduate School of Keio University)
      Panel
      Hideki Sunahara
      Naoyuki Iwashita (Kyoto University)
      Shin’ichiro Matsuo
      Rusty Russell
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • 11:50
      (Lunch Time)

    • The development, deployment and distribution of Bitcoin opened our eyes to decentralized economy and ecosystem. On the other hand, recent chaos in governance of cryptocurrency indicates immaturity of decentralized governance. We also encounter over estimation of the word of blockchain. In this session, we discuss what the first wave of the blockchain teaches us: the merit of decentralization, what is the current benefits and future benefits, problems to be solved and future issues.
      Talk Cory Fields (Bitcoin Core Developer)
      Talk Eric Lombrozo (Bitcoin Core Developer)
      Panel
      Cory Fields
      Eric Lombrozo
      Atsushi Santo (Japan Exchange Group)
      Greg Li (The Bitfury Group)
      Ian Miers (Zcash)
      <Moderator> Meltem Demirors (Digital Currency Group)

    • Blockchain technology needs to be a part of sustainable social ecosystem to come into its own.
      In this session, we will enlarge scope of discussion to social view point and discuss how we make larger and firm engineer community, maintain open-source community in neutral way, what is the good economic model and what kind of standardization activities are needed to give trust to blockchain ecosystem.
      Talk Jeremy Rubin (MIT Digital Currency Initiative)
      Talk Angela Walch (St. Mary's University School of Law)
      Panel
      Jeremy Rubin
      Angela Walch
      Kanta Matsuura (The University of Tokyo)
      Kazue Sako (NEC Security Research Labs.,)
      <Moderator> Shin'ichiro Matsuo (MIT Media Lab)

    • With considering fruits from decentralization, we should see innovation from edge and general citizens, and how this way improves our citizens experience (CX) like the Internet. In this session, we discuss about real power and potential of blockchain to enhance our CX and how further oprn innovation lead by DG Lab contribute this innovation.
      Talk George Li (WeTrust.io)
      Talk Nat Sakimura (Nomura Research Institute)
      Panel
      George Li
      Koichiro Eto (AIST)
      Izumi Okoshi (DENTSU INC.)
      <Moderator> Nat Sakimura

    • Blockchain is a foundation of trust of information and it does not solely produce new business, and combination of Blockchain and new advanced technology is the next topics to be discussed. In this session, we discuss how AI can collaborate with blockchain and provide enhancement to our experiences.
      Talk Koichi Nakamura (Idein Inc.)
      Panel
      Phil Libin (All Turtles)
      Tatsuya Kurosaka (Keio University, Graduate School of Media and Governance)
      Koichi Nakamura
      Meltem Demirors (Digital Currency Group)
      Ian Miers (Zcash)
      <Moderator> Joi Ito

    • 18:30
      Reception Party

    Speakers

    Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for latest information.

    2016 TOKYO @ DG Headquarters

    2016 SAN FRANCISCO @ DG717

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    Location

    Toranomon Hills Forum
    Toranomon Hills Mori Tower 5th Floor, 1-23-3 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

    5-minute walk from No. 1 Exit of Toranomon Stn.
    6-minute walk from Exit 3 of Kamiyacho Stn.
    8-minute walk from Exit A12 of Kasumigaseki Stn.
    11-minute walk from the Karasumoriguchi Exit of Shimbashi Stn.

    Tickets

    Recommended

    • Biotech & Blockchain

      7/25 & 7/26 2Day Pass
    • ¥50,000
    • Sold Out

    • Blockchain

      7/26 1Day Pass
    • ¥30,000
    • Sold Out

    Student Tickets Available

    Purchase from here
    * University (vocational, undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. programs) and high school students only
    * Student attendees must present their student ID at the reception desk, otherwise we kindly request them to purchase the full-priced ticket.