Innovation Leaders Summit (ILS) 2021 is the largest open innovation matchmaking event in Asia. If you are interested in collaborations with Japanese major corporations, this event is perfect for you. It focuses on connecting start-ups with+100 Japanese major corporations, investors and decision-makers or chief technical officers. ILS speeds up business collaboration in a better way than traditional fairs in Japan. Its last edition gathered 115 Japanese corporations from different industries.
Time: 8 – 12 March 2021, 8:30-19:00 JP time (1:30-12:00 in Finland).
- 3-5 March will be for “onsite” in Tokyo, but it’s not recommended for foreign start-ups due to safety due to COVID-19.
Place: Online
ILS 2021 provides start-up companies with an extended ONLINE participation period from 8 to12 March 2021. In order to participate, start-up companies need to go through the two screenings:
- 1st screening: Advisory board members recommend start-ups to ILS organizer.
- 2nd screening: ILS organizer selects nearly domestic/overseas 500 start-ups from the recommendation lists. The start-ups recommended by advisory board members go through the 2nd screening only.
Business Finland Tokyo and City of Sendai (the official friendship city of Oulu) are members of the advisory board andBusinessOulu is closely cooperating with them.
The final selected start-ups receive two opportunities for POWER MATCHING (one to one meetings) and TOKYO CHALLENGE 100 called T-100 (a collaboration matching contest). In T-100, each of 100 Japanese major corporation suggests 3 themes, to which start-ups submit their ideas. Each major cooperation selects one idea for each of the 3 themes to start online discussions that last from 8 to 12 March 2021. In addition, you may get meeting requests from Japanese corporations by direct emails sent to Business Finland, the City of Sendai or BusinessOulu. In that extra case, we will set up a separate online meeting for you.
How to enter the 1st screening?
Please send your company slide including the company’s URL, decision-maker’s and contact person’s details to BusinessOulu Takako Uchida (takako.uchida@businessoulu.com) by email until 21 Oct 2020.
** Contact person should be a person who checks emails often and responses speedily.
Requirements for the entry:
(1) Deep Tech related start-up companies
- Companies can accept collaborations like joint business/tech/product development.
- Companies only willing to sell products/services are not suitable.
- Listed companies and consulting companies are out of the target.
(2) Your head office or branch office is located in Northern Ostrobothnia (Pohjois-Pohjanmaa) region.
(3) Companies, a decision-maker or an equivalent person can join online one to one meetings.
- 1 hour for each one to one meeting, 20 business meeting requests in maximum arranged by each start-up through ILS system.
- After purchasing the participation pass, you can start business matching (POWER MATCHING) and challenging T-100.
– Participation pass fee (inc. tax): 16500JPY (ca 130e) or 66000JPY (ca 530e) with the pitch package
- Once you have been selected, the ILS organizer will email you with the participation pass information. Purchasing the participation pass is required until 1 Dec at 23:59 in Finnish time.
- Please note that;
- If you fail to purchase the pass and register company information until the above deadline, your participation will be cancelled.
- In case that the number of companies reaches around 500 capacities, ILS organizer will stop acceptance.
– If start-ups fit the below 3 requirements, you can cancel your participation and the fee will be refunded.
- Companies not selected for T-100
- Companies which have sent 5 or more business meeting requests for POWER MATCHING
- Companies with no business meetings arranged for POWER MATCHING
(The applied pitch will be also cancelled if you purchase the pass with the pitch package.)
For more details, please download the material: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sca6yo7irnj05r2/AABFMZPKV6YCV0_qwGtn0ll2a?dl=0
Contact person
Takako Uchida
Coordinator, International Affairs, Japan, BusinessOulu
takako.uchida@businessoulu.com