The Innovation Leaders Summit (“ILS”), possibly Asia's largest open-innovation event, was held both online and offline in February this year. The next edition meant to take place from 29 November 2022 will continue as a hybrid event. The past on-line edition of ILS was held on 7-10 February, while the face-to-face event took place in Tokyo from 16 to 18 February.

A total of 3,088 business meetings were held during the event with 672 startups and 109 large corporations in attendance. More than 16,000 people viewed the online event and more than 2,000 attended the in-person event. From the 2,720 one-on-one meetings being held, 1,002 resulted in actual deals, with major corporations expressing a desire to continue negotiating with the goal of forming partnerships. The EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation has been partnering with the organizers of ILS for several years by recommending a certain number of startups to be accepted to the event since ILS is an invite-only event, open to recommended companies.

Now, the EU-Japan Centre is interested in supporting innovative EU and Japanese startups, and in general SMEs willing to take part in the next edition of ILS. The selected companies will be able to decide whether to participate online or come to Tokyo in November.
The EU-Japan Centre is particularly interested in hearing from companies involved in the following sectors/technologies: AI (Control Technologies); AI (Image Recognition, Image Analysis); Batteries, Electricity Storage, Biomass; Connected Cars, Autonomous Cars; Decarbonization; Digital Health; EVs, Electric Cars; High-performance materials; Positioning Information, GPS; Renewable Energy; Sensors, MEMS; Supply Chain, Logistics; Wearable devices, smart devices; VR, AR, MR; 5G & 6G.

To have more information about this opportunity, feel free to get in touch with Luca Escoffier, Project Manager of the Space and the Japan and Technology Transfer Helpdesks by sending an e-mail to luca.escoffier@eu-japan.or.jp before 30 June 2022.