Web viewinstitutions taking part at CeBIT 2017 – about ten times as many as in 2016 and an all-time record in the history of Japan’s participation at CeBIT

Press Release10 November 2016

CeBIT 2017 (20–24 March, Mon.–Fri.):

Partner Country Japan: Big presence at CeBIT– Partner Country showcase embodies key trends in the digital

transformation– More than 120 Japanese companies expected

Japan is one of the world’s biggest economies, not to mention one of the richest. It is technologically highly developed and has a broadly diversified, strongly export-driven economic structure. And in March 2017, it will star as the Partner Country at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, where it will showcase itself to the world as an economic powerhouse and frontrunner in the digital transformation.

Hannover/Düsseldorf. Internet of Things. Virtual Reality. Artificial Intelligence. Cyber security. Autonomous systems. Humanoid robots. These are the big technology trends driving the digital transformation, and they will feature prominently in Japan’s Partner Country showcase at CeBIT. In March 2017, the showcase mounted by Japan’s corporate and institutional ambassadors will be a shining testament to the country’s innovative power and progressive outlook. It will also be very big, spanning more than 5,000 square meters (53,000 sq. ft. ) of display space.

And that’s just the main Partner Country showcase. There will also be numerous stand-alone Japanese displays at CeBIT’s

Deutsche Messe AGMessegelände30521 HannoverGermanyTel. +49 511 89-0Fax +49 511 [email protected]

No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 1/7

various theme clusters. In all, there will be more than 120 Japanese companies and institutions taking part at CeBIT 2017 – about ten times as many as in 2016 and an all-time record in the history of Japan’s participation at CeBIT.

“As Partner Country, Japan will be one of the defining factors at next year’s CeBIT show,” commented Oliver Frese, the Deutsche Messe Managing Board member in charge of CeBIT, at the “CeBIT Japan Special” conference on Thursday in Düsseldorf. “The Japanese government was looking for a world-leading digitalization showcase at which to demonstrate its prowess as a driver of innovation and pioneer of technological and scientific endeavor, and we are immensely proud that it has chosen CeBIT,” he said.

Japan’s Partner Country participation was confirmed in early October this year with the signing of a partner country agreement between Deutsche Messe and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). In his address to the Düsseldorf conference, JETRO Berlin Director-General Hitoshi Masuda made the following statement: “This is the first time Japan has been Partner Country at CeBIT. We are proud to announce that JETRO will be running a large Japanese national pavilion there. The agreement making it all possible was signed in Tokyo on German Unity Day. At that time, our Partner Country participation was expressly endorsed by Prime Minister Abe. In order to ensure that our Partner Country showcase is an absolute success, JETRO has now set up a special project group named ‘Kizuna,’ which is the Japanese word for ‘emotional


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 2/7

bond.’ The JETRO pavilion will present a wide range of technologies, including the use of robots in medicine and agriculture. We will use CeBIT to showcase these highly advanced, Japanese-developed technologies to a global audience.”

VIP speakers from Japan at CeBITLike the CeBIT Special in Düsseldorf, the actual CeBIT show in Hannover in March 2017 will feature numerous Japanese VIPs. For example, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, has received a personal invitation from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to join her in formally opening the show. Similarly, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, one of the world’s leading lights in robotics and the director of Osaka University’s Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, will be heading to Hannover with his robotic twin. In addition, the keynote speaker lineup at the CeBIT Global Conferences includes Minoru Usui, President of Epson, and Shoei Yamana, President and CEO of Konica Minolta.

The big highlights of the CeBIT Global Conferences also include an appearance by the Japanese-American entrepreneur Kei Shimada. Since 2012, Shimada has been a top-level executive at Dentsu Aegis, where he oversees the development of new solutions around wearables, neural technology, locational big data and crisis management infrastructures.

There will also be sizable contingent of top-level executives taking part at the CeBIT Japan Summit, which will be held on the first day of the show. Among their number will be senior


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 3/7

government figures from Japan and Germany and delegates from ground-breaking German and Japanese IT companies.

Strong presence by leading Japanese companiesAmong the Japanese companies leveraging CeBIT 2017 to showcase their latest innovations will be Epson. “Epson draws on traditional Japanese values to develop eco-friendly products. All of its developments are based on its own proprietary technologies, which are designed for efficiency, compactness and precision,” Henning Ohlsson, Epson’s CEO Germany and Director of CSR for the EMEAR region, told the audience in Düsseldorf. “CeBIT is the perfect platform for profiling our activities and technologies to a wide industry audience,” he said. “It is also ideal for presenting trend-setting new developments in the business segment. So it gives me great pleasure announce a European first right here and now. I’m talking about Epson PaperLab, our new paper recycling machine for office use. CeBIT 2017 will be the first time it’s gone on show outside Japan.”

One of the key themes highlighted by the Japanese exhibitors at CeBIT will be cyber security, as Raimund Genes, CTO of the Tokyo-based IT security provider Trend Micro, explained: “ With attacks by cyber criminals reaching unprecedented numbers and levels of sophistication, effective IT security and data protection have never been more important. These are important issues, to which Japan and Germany share a common approach. And so CeBIT 2017 is the ideal platform at which to present our expertise and solutions in these areas. In fact, it’s


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 4/7

doubly apt, in that Trend Micro is a Japanese company that’s been in the market for nearly 30 years and has a German subsidiary that’s been a regular exhibitor at CeBIT for over 20 years.”

Bilateral cooperation between Japan and GermanyOn the Wednesday of CeBIT 2017, the focus will be on bilateral knowledge transfer and joint research projects because that’s the day when the German-Japanese university network HeKKSaGOn will be holding a German-Japanese Symposium. One of the most exciting challenges faced by industry and the scientific community at the moment is to develop intelligent, self-learning robots that are suitable for everyday applications. Against this background, representatives of six leading Japanese and German universities will discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by robotics in the 21st century. They and key representatives from politics will use the symposium to make an important contribution to the debate around human-machine interaction in the context of demographic change and to outline the latest research findings to a broad CeBIT audience.

“Japan and Germany are among the world’s most innovative nations and face similar challenges, including digitalization and the push to develop sustainable, future-proof energy supply systems,” explained Dr. Katsumasa Ikematsu, an experimental physicist from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). “Six universities from Germany and Japan have banded together in the HeKKSaGOn network to develop joint solutions,” he added.


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 5/7

“The partners are engaged in research in several highly promising areas, including environmental and materials science, the life and social sciences and robotics. The latter will be the main focus of the symposium at CeBIT 2017.”

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will likewise be well represented at CeBIT. “NWR has fielded an average of more than 300 exhibitors at CeBIT over the past few years, putting it ahead of all the other German states and making it an international frontrunner as well,” Dr. Günther Horzetzky, a State Secretary at the NRW Ministry for Economics, told the conference. “The same will hold true at CeBIT 2017 – a fact that reflects North Rhine-Westphalia’s status as a key player in the European ICT scene. I am delighted that the upcoming CeBIT will feature many Japanese high-tech companies that are long-time corporate citizens of NRW and that Japan will be the official Partner Country. CeBIT is an excellent opportunity to foster dialogue and deepen our trade relations,” he said.

CeBIT – Global Event for Digital Business CeBIT is the world’s foremost event on everything essential to the wave of digitalization transforming virtually every aspect of business, government and society. Every spring, the show features a lineup of around 3,000 exhibitors and attracts some 200,000 visitors to its home base in Hannover, Germany. The spotlight is on all the latest advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, virtual and augmented reality, humanoid robots and drones. Thanks to a rich array of application scenarios, CeBIT makes


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 6/7

digitalization tangible in the truest sense of the word. “d!conomy – no limits”, the chosen lead theme for 2017, underscore’s the show’s emphasis on revealing the wealth of opportunities arising from the digital transformation. As a multifaceted exhibition/conference/networking event, CeBIT is a perennial must for everyone involved in the digital economy. The startup scene is also right at home at CeBIT and its dedicated SCALE 11 showcase, which sports more than 400 aspiring young enterprises. The next CeBIT will be staged from 20 to 24 March 2017, with Japan as its official Partner Country. For further information, visit www.cebit.de.

No. of characters (incl. spaces): 9,550

Your contact for further information:Gabriele DörriesTel.: +49 511 89-31014E-mail: [email protected]

For related press releases and images, visit: www.cebit.de/en/press-service/


No. 016/2017 – 101-Dö/Breu 7/7

http://www.cebit.de/

Documents

Web viewinstitutions taking part at CeBIT 2017 – about ten times as many as in 2016 and an all-time record in the history of Japan’s participation at CeBIT