Japanese technologies: innovation policy, latest developments

Japan during the second half of the 20th century, and now in the 21st century. rightly bears the title of an ultra-modern power. Today, Japan's technologies not only make the country one of the leading economies, but have also become an integral part of its culture. They help protect themselves from the difficult natural conditions of small islands and contribute to global scientific progress.

Innovation policy of Japan

The Japanese innovation strategy plays a big role in the high competitive abilities of the island state against the backdrop of Western developed powers. Its rapid economic growth and flexibility in adapting to sudden changes in the international market would not have been possible without effective innovation - one of the foundations of this achievement.

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Japan's innovation policy includes the following areas:

Improving the quality of teaching in technical specialties in universities.
Bringing innovation into the educational process.
Strengthening links between universities and the private sector.
Financial support for impactful research.
Subsidizing and protection of intellectual property for research and development (R&D).
Providing assistance to international projects on scientific and technical cooperation.

Issues of the country's innovation policy are considered at the highest level.

For example, the Japanese Prime Minister himself is at the head of the Science Council. This council sets the strategy for the scientific and technological development of the state. The Japanese government protects the national market by helping local corporations develop industrial R&D. They may not always receive funding from the state, but they are protected from competition from foreign companies.

How I ended up at the end of the world

Hello, my name is Danya Chepenko. I was born and raised in Moscow - and in 2021 I moved to live in Asia.

I have long been interested in finding out how life works here. For a Westerner, any Asian country is an incomprehensible and alien world, almost another planet. And the more stories I heard about moving to the East, the more I wanted to check out how life really is here - and this can only be done by immersing yourself 100%.

Everyone has their own reasons for relocating: some are looking for a higher salary, others are looking for new complex tasks. The most important thing for me was to understand how local technologies work: I even started a channel in which I write analytical notes about the Asian IT market.

I was finishing college, so I had two options: look for a job or study further. I chose a master's degree: I went to Hong Kong, and from there I moved to Japan.

I studied, interned at a fund as an analyst - my visa did not allow me to work full time. The Chinese IT market is very strong, the conditions are harsh, there are many top engineers. For example, one of my friends said that before Black Friday, employees of companies like AliBaba can be in the office all week. And if you plan to develop your product in the future, it’s almost impossible to squeeze into the market.

While I was thinking about what to do after my master’s degree, I was unexpectedly approached by a recruiter from the Japanese company Yahoo! Japan - and offered to work with them. I thought: why not? And he moved.

<commercial break> According to g-mate statistics, at least 30–50% of employers are ready to consider remote work, and relocation is the second most popular among locations. And the coronavirus that is boring everyone is not an obstacle: during the pandemic, both in Russia and abroad, hiring has accelerated 3 times.

Priority areas of innovative development

Scientific activity in Japan is concentrated on the latest technologies. Most innovations are introduced to improve the quality of life of the population and protect the environment. The Land of the Rising Sun strives for harmony between nature and science. The experience of living in a seismically active area literally forces the Japanese to improve the infrastructure of cities, build housing that is as earthquake-proof as possible, and build safe transport networks.

Environmentally friendly engines for transport are being developed and constantly improved. Steps are being taken in the world of robotics. The Japanese, unlike residents of Europe and America, are less wary of the development of robots and artificial intelligence. The Japanese were the first in the world to find and implement solutions in the field of computer technology that everyone uses today. These include CD/DVD drives, Flash memory, SuperH architecture, etc. Japanese electronics on store shelves remain one of the most high-tech.

Storming asteroids

Due to the limited budget and limited technical capabilities, most of the space exploration in Japan was practical and utilitarian. However, in the 1980s, Japan launched the first interplanetary spacecraft. At that time, Halley's Comet was passing by the Earth, and Japanese astronautics could not remain aloof from the opportunity to study this most interesting celestial body.

Two space probes were launched at once: Sakigake (MS-T5) to provide communications and Suisei (PLANET-A), whose task was to approach the comet’s nucleus as close as possible and transmit its image. Then in 1990, Japan successfully launched an automatic flyby station towards the Moon.

Launch of the M-3SII rocket with the Suisei space probe (PLANET-A), August 19, 1985. Photo: JAXA

But this was just a warm-up, and in 2003, Japanese astronautics began Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon), one of the most interesting interplanetary missions of recent decades. Its goal was to study the Itokawa asteroid and deliver samples from its surface to Earth. Missions to collect and return soil are considered one of the most difficult in world astronautics. The fact is that they contain too many different operations, and there is a very high chance that something will go wrong. In the case of Hayabusa, this is exactly what happened.

Launched on May 9, 2003 by a Japanese M-5 launch vehicle, Hayabusa was designed for a four-year “space mission.” It was planned that in June 2007 it would return to Earth and drop a capsule with extracted soil samples. Two years later, the device approached the asteroid and began research, but two of the three gyroscopes failed, which put the entire mission in jeopardy. Despite the refusal, the operators tried to execute the required program.

It was almost impossible to land on an asteroid and drill through it due to the low gravity. Then how to collect soil? The designers came up with a very original move. From a short distance, the spacecraft fired a metal “bullet” at the asteroid, and a special camera captured micrograins of matter flying away from the asteroid. The size of such micrograins is only a few micrometers (one thousandth of a millimeter), but this is enough to study the composition of the asteroid.

Assembly of the rocket with the Hayabusa-2 space probe, November 17, 2014. Photo: JAXA.

"Hayabusa" managed to make several successful shots, coped with a software error, but damaged the ion engine during its approach to the asteroid. As a result, the return journey took him three years longer, and only in 2010 did he finally drop the capsule with soil, which landed near the Woomera training ground in southern Australia.

Currently, the Hayabusa-2 mission is underway, which should result in the collection of soil samples from the Ryugu asteroid. The device is already returning to Earth and should enter the dense layers of the atmosphere in December of this year.

Latest Japanese technology

Modern innovations in Japan can be divided into 2 large groups. Some of them are literally creating science, such as the Super Kamiokande neutrino detector, 290 km from Tokyo, located at a depth of 1 km. Others are fun little things that surprise the world with their weirdness, like the Gatebox virtual partner for single people. This combination allows us to confidently declare that Japan is a country of high technologies, because here they have penetrated into every corner of life.

In 2021, the SuperKEKB supercollider was launched in the city of Tsukuba, and recently a group of Tokyo scientists created the thinnest elastic solar panels, which in the foreseeable future may allow you to charge the gadget literally from your own clothes. Already today, the rich technological heritage of the future in such a small country as Japan is disproportionately greater than that of most major powers in the world.

The Japanese do not stop on the path of creating a highly developed humanoid robot, gradually creating a different culture, still unfamiliar to us. In it, robots will exist in human society on an equal basis with people. The famous Boston Dynamics has now been purchased by the Japanese corporation SoftBank with all its achievements, which makes it possible to declare Japan’s almost uncompetitive position in the field of creating android robots.

Contract training and free higher education

According to the Japanese themselves, student life is one of the easiest and most carefree periods in their lives. An uninterrupted series of preparatory courses, thematic clubs and intense schoolwork gives way to the measured flow of student life. At the same time, the Japanese attitude towards learning remains unchanged, since from the moment they enter preschool institutions until they graduate from university, it occupies a priority position in their lives.

The training program in higher educational institutions, especially the first two years, is not particularly difficult, since it is aimed at consolidating existing knowledge. At the same time, education in Japan is mostly paid, and even in state universities the number of budget places is strictly limited. Despite this, many strive to obtain higher education.

Free education is the highest privilege that must be earned. At the same time, not only the training itself is paid, but also all accompanying aspects, such as food, accommodation, travel and much more.

The first year of stay at the institute is the easiest for a student in terms of workload, but the most difficult from a financial point of view for his parents. The cost of studying in Japan depends on many factors, among which the prestige of the university takes a leading position. On average, to pay for the first year of study at a more or less decent institute, you need $8,000–9,000. At the same time, all subsequent years are much cheaper, since their cost is about 5,500–6,000 dollars.

In addition, all associated costs must be paid. For example, the cost of living depends on the city and region of the country. For renting housing in the capital or another metropolis you will have to pay 800–1200 dollars per month. At the same time, accommodation in a hostel will cost much less and will be only 400–450 dollars.

The annual cost of studying at universities in Japan will be about $15,000–$22,000, excluding food and recreation.

English in Asia: necessary, but not sufficient

In Hong Kong, I worked with Hong Kongers and Chinese - in principle, they speak English well. But internal communication took place in Chinese. At first it isolated me from my colleagues, but then I got used to it: I learned Chinese, I know the basics. The complexity of the language is shocking at first: there are 6 tones in Cantonese. That is, the same word can be pronounced differently, and because of this take on different meanings. I learned a little Chinese so that I had enough vocabulary for daily work, but I still understood about 10 percent of the conversations at the water cooler. But maybe that’s good: these dialogues could simply be irrelevant.

I really only knew how to say hello in Japanese, but I decided to take a risk and move to find out how the IT sector works here. The company had cool onboarding; they paid me for individual lessons with a tutor during working hours, and then for group lessons. This helped me get involved in work processes.

English is very bad in Japan. A Japanese person you meet on the street most likely knows the language to a minimum and will be able to help show you the way, for example, but no one wants to speak English. All expats echo each other that you need to learn the local language and there is no way around it. But in Japan, in my opinion, this is necessary more than anywhere else.

Classes with native speakers did not adapt me to the working environment 100%. Many meetings were held in Japanese, and I understood a third of what was said. But everything related to business processes was on the presentation slides, and you can translate them yourself without any problems. And at technical meetings we tried to communicate in English - there were no problems.

At some point, I was the only foreigner on the team among five locals. I thought that it was inconvenient for them to switch to English just for my sake, and suggested that they communicate in Japanese in work chats. It turned out that this is not so difficult: most often a limited list of terms is used, my task was to remember certain language structures and minimal grammar. So I made a list of the most common turns of phrase and learned them.

But still, I felt uncomfortable working in a team consisting only of Japanese. Yes, it's interesting to see what you're capable of. But joining the professional community is difficult, and to grow vertically, an impeccable knowledge of Japanese at the business level is required.

Plus, I didn’t like working in a giant corporation: clumsy processes, a large layer of technology, the feeling of being a cog in a soulless machine - it’s very difficult to influence the development of a product. It is not clear whether you develop as a specialist in such conditions.

Therefore, in parallel with my work, I always looked at what projects might be in demand on the local market - I wanted to use the accumulated knowledge about Asia and post-startup. An acquaintance wrote to me, whose project had recently launched and unexpectedly took off, asking for help. I got involved and soon quit to develop his startup together. We make a platform for immersive video communications: a third of users are from Japan, we work with Sony, Panasonic and Sega.

Why NOT Japan

1. Many things work here differently than in other countries, and you just have to accept it. Especially when it comes to service and quality of services: most likely, no one will listen to your feedback, even if the complaints are quite reasonable. If the Japanese approach fails to be adopted, a person will either live in a feeling of isolation, or become disillusioned with the country and leave.

2. Japanese is difficult, but you need to know it. This is perhaps the biggest challenge that can put off a potential expat: there are no cheat codes to learning a language. You'll have to spend time and learn. And without a tongue, most likely you won’t be able to stay for long

3.
It will not be easy for a foreigner to build a vertical career in management. It is possible that this minus is temporary: as I noted above, the country is changing and is looking at some processes more openly. For technical specialists, everything is similar to other countries, but there will be many management difficulties.

<commercial break> According to g-mate statistics, at least 30–50% of employers are ready to consider remote work, and relocation is the second most popular among locations. And the coronavirus that is boring everyone is not an obstacle: during the pandemic, both in Russia and abroad, hiring has accelerated 3 times.