The Future of Life Co-creation Project 2025 launched in 2021 under the guidance of Producer ISHIGURO Hiroshi and 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.). The project looks at how society and life might be 50 years in the future (in 2075). Some of their ideas will be incorporated as future scenarios and technologies in the signature pavilion. The third All-Company Co-creation Meeting (referred to as “All-Company Co-creation MTG” below) featured an overall summary of the second term of the project, with each company presenting worldviews and scenario concepts.

See this article for news on the previous All-Company Co-creation MTG.

Seven Scenario Concepts Begin to Take Concrete Shape

The first half of the meeting consisted of the companies sharing their collations of concrete worldviews and scenario concepts that they had crystalized from the abstract discussions and ideas they had previously amassed. Thus, presentations of the worldviews and scenario concepts took into account each company’s specializations, and were given in the order of “citymovementdaily livingmind, body, and healthlifestyles and individuality,” which was best thought to support the smooth linkage of scenarios. Each concept went so far as to include analysis and consideration of concrete scenes and cases, and carefully envisioning the future in this way gradually exposed a more tangible image of the world to come.

Worldviews and scenario concepts of each company

*Edited excerpts

Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.
We own real spaces like stations and facilities, so we compared the benefits of these kinds of real spaces with virtual spaces and organized our thoughts. With that in mind, we considered environments in which the benefits of the virtual and the real blend together, and thought of using the three cases of public spaces, Hanshin Koshien Stadium (baseball games), and theater viewing (Takarazuka Revue).

DENSO CORPORATION
In terms of movement to enhance the imagination, we thought that people would have evolved through the reciprocal and repetitive movement of physical pleasure of the body and virtual pleasure of the brain.
Based on this hypothesis, we at DENSO team are going to draw three specific scenarios for society, daily living, and the individual and verify them through Proof of Concept from now on.

HASEKO Corporation
We imagine the future house to be like an “organism” that can learn, self-repair, and communicate. Also, we define the future family as “a group in which membership lets you live life in your own way” and we believe diversity and expansion in family formats will arise through freeing families from the constraints of space, time, and perceptions that restrict family definitions to biological relationships.

SHIONOGI & Co., Ltd.
We think 2075 will be an era in which values pertaining to illness and health will differ depending on the opinions of people living their lives, an era in which that judgement is made by the criteria of “whether or not each individual is filled with enough vitality to live in their own personal way.” We expanded our thinking to include methods for how people should live in order to be healthy, given that presumption.

Sysmex Corporation
We have developed a new understanding of “the mind. “Our view is that “strengthening the mind” is not only about toughness, but rather a process that embodies the suppleness of changing from negative to neutral to positive. Moreover, we considered the parameters that should be monitored to assess the mind, visualization of the mind, and how to make use of them fifty years in the future, along with methods for strengthening the mind, and refining our future scenarios.

Japan Federation of Kaigo Business Providers Consortium Expo 2025
In future society, living in a youthful state over the age of 100 without losing physical functionality will be commonplace through advances in medical technology. The entire concept of receiving care as is common in the present will disappear, and everyone will be able to fully enjoy life. We believe that death will change from being something that comes suddenly to something that actively confronts and designs beyond the anticipated death.

KOKUYO Co.,Ltd.
People will be freed from acquiring knowledge through advances in AI, and the pursuit of values that features more of a focus on individual curiosity and interest will become the format of learning in the future. Against this backdrop, KOKUYO Co.,Ltd. wants to provide ongoing support for learning that is more personalized by suggesting recommendations, advice, and possibilities.

After listening to the company presentations, Ishiguro commented, “All of the concepts have a more concrete sense of reality than before, and they are all starting to feel right.” At the same time, he also added words of motivation for the next term, “Recently, both AI and robotics are experiencing dramatic advancements, as exemplified by ChatGPT, and innovations in those fields will be amazing things to see in fifty years from now. This is exactly why imagination that stretches a step further is needed. Let’s have even more discussion.”

Keyword that could be the center of attention in 2075

In response to the presentations of the seven companies, technology cooperation Bronze Partner and observer HORIBA, Ltd. offered a suggestion that was themed “city environment” as an idea underpinning the worldviews. HORIBA predicts that the world of 2075 will be one in which “creation activities”* will become the core of daily living through technology that actualizes energy and resource recycling via the adoption of minimal units (the most suitable units that allow sustainable living in harmony with nature). Then, the presentation depicted a shift towards a future with a daily living style that frees people from fixed ideas and physical constrictions and promotes self-expression through creation activities.

Furthermore, the last half of the meeting featured the first presentation of a series of scenario plots based on the scenario concepts from the companies, and work discussion and feedback were conducted for the plots. Amidst high spirits, Ishiguro provided a centralized focus: “This exhibition zone is only a part of the signature pavilion Future of Life. We have to pull this together as an exhibit people can experience in about 25 minutes, which means we have to collate the ideas we want to express succinctly.”

*Creation activities: The human activities that generate value together through creating, reusing, and sharing. Human activities have been evolving from those necessary for living into those that are value-generating efforts.

At the after-meeting casual talk, Ishiguro gave even deeper feedback for each presentation, and there was no time wasted in beginning the casual exchange of opinions. Additionally, the scenario plot presentations went beyond words to let a visual image of the future begin to develop, and interactions between the companies became even deeper. The next term will see the scenario production start in earnest, which will weave together the scenario concepts from each company. Moving towards this, the contours of the future began to emerge even more distinctly.