The Future of Life Co-creation Project 2025, which was launched in 2021 under the guidance of its thematic project producer, ISHIGURO Hiroshi, has been exploring what society and life will be like half a century in the future, with the support of seven participating companies (HASEKO Corporation, KOKUYO Co.,Ltd., SHIONOGI & Co., Ltd., Sysmex Corporation, Japan Federation of Kaigo Business Providers Consortium Expo 2025, DENSO CORPORATION, and Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.). At the separate co-creation meetings with each of the companies (“Individual Company Co-creation Meeting”) in the first term (April to September 2022), the discussions focused on what sort of role each of these industries and fields would play in the future society of fifty years hence and whether there were any other fields that should be aimed for, while learning about future technology seeds (technologies required for moving ahead with business development). In this report, we present some of the content of the Individual Company Co-creation Meeting discussions.

*The following individual opinions and feedback are selected and edited sections.

HASEKO Corporation

| Improving Residential Environments | AI Residences | Living in Virtual Worlds |

As a corporate group creating homes and lifestyles, HASEKO depicts a future where anyone can live a spiritually rich life, and not merely a comfortable and convenient one. Based on the idea of “Living = Creating an identity,” we deepened our discussions through considering what homes of the future fifty years from now should be like, and what future socially-accepted ideas will be.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• We think it would be interesting if houses had a brain (AI), one that could suggest a range of technologies to improve that house’s living environment.
• Home appliances are to an extent sort of a symbol of AI, but we want to complete an image of what future AI homes that incorporate all home appliance functions within them will look.
• If we have people who spend about half the time spent in their home in a virtual world, we might need homes as access points within this virtual world. We need to think about what sort of design houses will have then, what sort of room design.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• “Sharing” will be a major key word even fifty years from now.
• When the AI learns from people living there, it might be able to provide useful services for the residents. If that happens, it will be important to consider the value of that house in terms of software.
• There was discussion of materials, of self-repair, of energy, and about virtual worlds and AI, but I suspect AI might be a major element in bringing back the good parts of traditional Japanese homes.

KOKUYO Co.,Ltd.

| Education for Finding Meaning | Counseling & Mentoring | Future Learning Spaces |

KOKUYO’s business is in the fields of working, learning, and living. Tackling social issues and values within this changing world, the company aims to express a future where each person can shine. Deepening our interpretation of its corporate philosophy, “be Unique” (Stimulate creativity and celebrate uniqueness), we talked about issues that need to be solved in order for people around the world to continue to “be Unique” fifty years hence, and the true nature of creativity.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• A society where anyone can enjoy a career, a working style that fits them without being swayed by society’s systems – a “be Unique” situation is what will bring this society about.
• The view of learning is likely to be freed from having to have a purpose, and learning itself may become focused on pure entertainment and enjoyment.
• By the year 2075, we may be able to provide the impetus for people being able to live in their own way while drawing on their creativity through learning.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• What we need to value in this expo is searching for new ways for human evolution while we use technology to support Japanese culture and traditions. We absolutely can become unique while remaining in harmony.
• Instead of just cheering on those who were unique anyway, what KOKUYO does is see how far it can draw out and encourage the uniqueness in all people.
• It might be easy to understand what KOKUYO should do to help everyone around the world be unique fifty years hence if you think of what future places of learning would be like once the walls between schools (learning) and companies (working) come down.

SHIONOGI & Co., Ltd.

| Expanding the Concept of Medicine | Drug Discovery-based Company Moves to Environment Company | Spiritually Enriching Ways of Living |

SHIONOGI boldly creates the future of healthcare unbound by existing preconceptions to pursue the health people truly desire and provide new values that never existed before. Rather than just issues faced by medication or issues faced by society and industries fifty years in the future, the discussions delved deeply into more serious issues such as what health meant and whether one could design one’s own death.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• Looking back on the past, we saw an increased variety in how medication was dosed over the last fifty years. From injections to medication you drink as films, for example. Our concepts of medicine have expanded.
• It seems like it would be good to accept death cheerfully. I think it would be best if we saw it as leaving having achieved all we wanted to achieve.
• If, fifty years in the future, we really are free of the flesh, and can do all sort of things in mental worlds like the metaverse, the medication we will need will be different, with a greater focus on how much satisfaction we can get from life in terms of our psychological needs or feelings.
• As a future socially-accepted idea, the idea that your health is your responsibility might take root.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• A drug discovery company could be seen as an environmental company if we look at it from the perspective of prevention or early detection. It will become completely normal to create medicine after understanding how illnesses arise from the environment. For example, a new future could be depicted by having companies like HASEKO and Hankyu Hanshin, which broadly monitor the environment, work together.
• The individual and the environment, the body and the brain, external immunity, autoimmunity, what medicine is, what treatment is: if we can show these basic visions, we can show the future of fifty years from now.
• One of the key points of this pavilion is what age we should set a lifespan to be.

Sysmex Corporation

| Healthcare that Satisfies the Soul | Freely Select “You” | To Virtual, and to Universal |

In line with the mission of “Shaping the advancement of healthcare,” Sysmex depicts the world of future healthcare, brought about by dramatic technological innovations, by focusing on not just how the body, but how people should be; on the soul that is their essence. While imagining a future without medical borders and with changing concepts of treatment, Sysmex has confronted the challenges of how we will live fifty years from now.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• As the concept of body-centered medicine changes, will we find ourselves in a world where it is standard for healthcare to go beyond treatment or prevention, but focuses on tracking your daily condition to make you better in both body and soul? Hospitals should no longer just be places to heal sickness, but where people can expand their functionality, sense joy.
• In the real and the virtual worlds, through avatars and functionality expansion, it might become possible for us to freely choose the “I” we want to be, the “I” that suits our environment.
• We want to see us being able to tell what is going on with someone in reality and keeping them in tune without only relying on things like surgery or invasive testing, using technologies like digital twins or organoids.
• In thinking about the future, we want to believe that social boundaries will fade, revealing a spectrum, and in the future healthcare will be freed from the stereotypes that illness = unhappiness and health = happiness. If we can then imagine our spheres of activity expanding universally, including globally, out in space and virtually, we will be able to depict a future of interesting healthcare.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• Humanity evolves by incorporating technology such as artificial organs. Therefore, having a flesh-and-blood body might not be a requirement for defining “human.” Being human is more about your soul, your spirit. As technology evolves further, we will incorporate it into our bodies, freeing us from the limitations of the flesh and making the soul, the mind, more important.
• In terms of the future image of hospitals, I think “a place to go to satisfy the soul” is a good key phrase.
• When depicting the future fifty years hence, it’s important to have an image of how far the mechanization of the systems that support people and hospitals are evolving. Even more so, it is important to envision how these systems will develop as they handle issues of mental health. I think it would be a good idea to consider what cutting-edge medicine will be like fifty years from now, and how mental health issues will be dealt with, all while incorporating a global perspective, or a universal perspective from space.

Japan Federation of Kaigo Business Providers Consortium Expo 2025

| AI + Robot Care | Towns with Care Functionality | The Design of Utopia |

Believing that the “future society” is also the “future care,” Japan Federation of Kaigo Business Providers Consortium Expo 2025 aims to bring together the techniques and expertise built up by care providing companies nationwide and the new technologies and products developed and held by corporations and specialist institutions, and co-create “future care” where the lives of the elderly can shine. Multiple discussions were held on issues that will help bring about this vision in fifty years’ time, such as freedom from the physical labor and unproductive tasks found in the care environment.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• I want to see work that can be done with the A.I.R (AI + Robots) care model to be done with that, so that humans can focus on value-assessment tasks. This should allow us to be freed from physical labor and unproductive tasks.
• Being able to ask for care without worrying about imposing when robots are working between caregiver and care receivers. I think it would be nice if there was the right to live without being a burden on others, to be free of worrying like that.
• Just as assistive devices have become universal design, I think we’re headed in a good direction, towards towns and cities with functions that allow everyone, including the elderly, the handicapped, infants, young children, and those bringing children up, to live in them easily. To achieve that, we need to take the step of bringing about technological innovation and dissolving legal restrictions for each care scenario.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• There was a lot of talk about things like social participation, the meaning of life, the roles we should play, and those are all key points when envisioning an amazing future.
• The team needs to present the message that thinking about ideal care environments or ideal towns or environments is an issue for all citizens.
• The question of how we can make a utopia for the elderly is related to what social norms will be once lifespans reach 120 or 150 years old, so I think using a questionnaire is a great idea. I think the questionnaire design will be a key issue for the second term.

DENSO CORPORATION

| Mobility that Fosters Imagination & Creativity | Mobility Creates Life | Seamlessly Experience Everything |

Based on the theme of “What is the future of mobility?” DENSO depicts a future society while considering the meaning of the mobility of people living in 2075, what mobility should be. Through mobility, people’s imagination and creativity have been fostered. While focusing on the cultures created from imagination and creativity, we considered from a range of angles how mobility evolves people and its presence as something that creates people’s very lives.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• Can’t we boost the excitement and curiosity that will further enhance imagination and creativity through mobility technologies?
• The essence of mobility seems to have two major components. One is that stimulating the senses during mobility encourages imagination and creativity. The other is that the data, the learning, the random encounters gained from mobility deepen imagination and creativity. It may be that people have evolved by promoting and deepening their imagination and creativity.
• Anyone, young or old, will be able to move freely, and that free mobility will connect with new discoveries and learning, enhancing curiosity. We think people will want to be able to experience being able to move seamlessly at any time between the real and virtual worlds.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• Mobility is not a method, but rather has always been a basic function of humanity, and I feel we can look at humans as being basically mobile brains. I wonder how people will change through mobility in that future when we have evolved still further. I hope we can think about those changes.
• Once we can design ideal mobility in the metaverse, that can be used for vehicles and driving in the real world. The issue is what perspective we should use when incorporating new technologies. We know the main goal of making mobility an objective, and that a range of technologies are involved, but how to properly incorporate these new technologies?

Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.

| Ideal Mobility/Future Trains | Fostering Culture | People Involved with Stations Become a Hub that Forms a Community |

As a corporate group that offers color in your life and prosperous lifestyles, supporting people’s way of life, Hankyu Hanshin Holdings provides messages for future society. We have expanded our vision in multiple directions, not just railways, to consider what a good town is, what sort of future fifty years hence we will see from a fusion of railways, towns, and entertainment.

Project Members’ Hypotheses

• How can we add a playful spirit to mobility and towns?
• If we utilize future technologies, any customer, no matter who, could be able to be responsible for urban creation, and we might be free from the framework of “business” and “customer.”
• When people get together and a culture is fostered, forming distinctive areas or new entertainments, perhaps public transport organizations can function as part of the town for moving around it.
• Stations that connect the various appealing towns thus created, and people connected with stations, become hubs that connect the people who visit, which would mean all stations become new community hubs with their own unique characteristics, giving rise to distinctive train lines.

Feedback from Ishiguro

• It is important to have innovations for how future towns will develop, and obviously this includes all of railways, real estate, and entertainment. I’m glad to see you’re looking at towns on a different scale to others.
• What are ideal mobility and trains? In a ticket sales system, you can sell anything, and if anything can be added on, what should be? If we freed stations from preconceived notions, we might be able to conceive of stations that don’t even need ticket gates. And what will trains look like in the future? How many lines, how long, will carriages get shorter and narrower, will we have women-only carriages, men-only carriages, dog-only carriages and more? These are what you need to consider.

We are increasingly excited for the world of fifty years hence after organizing and discussing these issues even as each company reconfirms the reason for its existence and its role. In the second term, we will further deepen the ideas about future scenes shown in the first term, broadening our perspective to more specific visions of events with more established characters, and shape future scenarios. In addition to the future each of these depicts, we need to keep our eye on follow-up reports such as the development of new ideas or scenarios from interactions among companies.