Japanese, Indian youths embark on 9-day mission from Delhi to Varanasi: Hack The Innovative Future

NEW DELHI: On Saturday, twenty Japanese youths along with an equal number of Indian youths jointly embarked on a 900 km long road journey called “Ideathon – Hack The Innovative Future” from Gurugram, a suburb of New Delhi that will culminate at Varanasi after nine days. The mission for these youngsters is to generate innovative ideas on the basis of the knowledge and experiences they gather through this venture-based journey for building further relations between India and Japan.

These youngsters who were shortlisted after a rigorous and long-drawn selection process, are divided into 10 teams of four with two youths from Japan and India each including girls and boys. On Saturday, escorted by their mentors and top representatives of the organising team, they visited at three major locations – Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) plant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) office, and GMDA’s Integrated Command & Control Centre (ICCC) in Gurugram.

All 40 youths reached Gurugram on Friday evening to attend the orientation event at DIA PARK Premier Hotel where they attended the opening ceremony and were greeted by the Hack the Innovative Future organisning executive committee members – Chairman of this event, and Chairman and Managing Director at Mitsubishi Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. Yoji Taguchi, Chairman at Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India (JCCII), and Chairman & Managing Director at Marubeni Corporation India Susumu Wakamori, Secretary General at Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India (JCCII) Kenji Sugino, Chairman at Japan Association Delhi, and President & CEO at Canon India Manabu Yamazaki, and Producer of this Hack the innovative future program, and CEO at InfoBRIDGE India, Ms. Naho Shigeta.

Manabu Yamazaki raised a toast for all the participants, mentors, and staff members before the dinner. In a candid message to youths, he said, “Stay positive and test negative” thereby meaning that they should be staying hopeful and futuristic throughout the entire journey of 900 kms but stay careful about the Covid norms and remain healthy.

The Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Japan in India, and Charge d’affairs ad-Interim Mr. Kunihiko Kawazu also reached the venue to motivate the youths as well as the organisors.

While addressing the young leaders from India and Japan, the chief guest of the event Mr. Kawazu said, “One of the major highlights of the Joint statement from the India-Japan Summit held in March was the importance of the “People-to-People Exchange” on the occasion of 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India, and Japan this year. I believe amalgamating different perceptions of the same experience provides an opportunity to explore possibilities of a promising future together. I believe this event is conducive in providing a platform for the youth of our two countries, and I am sure it will be a huge success.”

As the Masters of Ceremony Yuta Furukawa from Marubeni Corporation India and Aparna Rakumar from Mitsubishi Corporation India introduced Shingo Eguchi from Mitsubishi corporation India, Tsutomu Nanjo from Marubeni Corporation India, Ms. Momoka Nozuka from Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India, Ms. Ayumi Akane from Info Bridge India, Ms. Miu Shirai from Canon India, and Ms. Satoko Sakai, the official manager of Hack the innovative future. ,

The Mentor members included Takashi Akiba from Sumitomo corporation India, Ms. Madoka Horio from Okaya Corporation India, Ms. Aparna Rakumar from Mitsubishi corporation India, Ms. Akari Oda from Embassy of Japan, Kohsuke Kumagai from Mitsubishi Corporation India, and Rahul Gupta from All Nippon Airways (ANA).

Ms. Naho Shigeta CEO, InfoBRIDGE India and event Producer explained about the details of the workshop drill.

According to Ms. Shigeta the world is changing drastically. As a hypothesis, many people think Japan and India can be mutual complement supplement each other. Japanese mindset (such as Perfection) and Indian mindset (ex. Jugaad) are completely different, but both of us have similarity as well. I hope that interacting with the same generation with different values, and experiencing diverse societies will be a good opportunity to think about your career and contribution to create the future.

Also read: A total of 77 Japanese Cos. come forward to support Ideathon – Hack the Innovative Future

Next day on Saturday, the youths from Japan and India got onto the 9-day and 900-km long journey and reached Manesar-based Honda’s Global Resource Centre – Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) where Atsushi Ogata, President & CEO, HMSI along with his team welcomed them. Both the teams made a 2-hour visit to the entire plant and were briefed about the company’s activities and operations – domestic and overseas.

Then followed another visit to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as well as Gurgaon Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA)’s Integrated Command & Control Centre (ICCC). Here, Yukata Inoue, GM, Smart Manufacturing, NEC Corporation India, and his team greeted the youngsters. Vijay Vishal, Head- Project Delivery, NEC Corporation India made a detailed presentation about ICCC which is part of the Smart City project of the Haryana Government. He said that ICCC was effecting surveillance of the entire Gurugram city with the help of 1200 high-end CCTV cameras. The youths asked a series of questions related to the project.

On Sunday, the boarded in three buses the Hack the Innovative Future team would reach Agra and take to the Yamuna Highway via Noida. Here they will attend a workshops on history, and then reach the Agra Fort. The next day on Monday, they will visit world’s seventh wonder Taj Mahal.

Then they will reach Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, September 20, and later Prayagraj (Allahabad) experiencing diverse culture and values, and finally at Varanasi on September 21. Here, these teams would stay for three days, and make presentations at the International Cooperation and Convention Centre – Rudraksha (means Bodhi tree fruit). It was developed with the assistance of Japan.  At the end of the trip, each team will give a presentation at the Varanasi Convention Center, and the names of the winners of the first, second and third position would be announced. There are many other categories of award too.