Robotic Innovations in Japan

5:30–6:45 p.m.  |  Thursday, Feb. 27 
Fromm Hall, Berman Room

The USF Center for Asia Pacific Studies welcomes Yoshinari Oyama, senior director of NEDO (Silicon Valley), to campus to discuss robotic innovation in Japan. Japan is the leading country when it comes to producing robotic technologies. Around 60 percent of robots in the world are made in Japan and most of them are utilized in manufacturing. Recently, in addition to industrial use, new services are growing with the aid of robots in accordance with the development of AI technologies. Creating connectivity between people at home and society through robots is one example of these services.

In this lecture, the speaker will introduce the different types of robotic innovation that Japan is working on from industrial robots to pet robots, and discussing how robots are assisting human beings to solve social problems.

About the Speaker
Yoshinari Oyama is the senior director of the NEDO Silicon Valley Office. He is responsible for research on R&D and intellectual property. He has worked for the Japan Patent Office as a patent examiner and as an administrative judge for over 14 years before joining NEDO in 2019. He earned an Intellectual Property LLM from the University of Washington in 2012 and a master’s degree in Energy Science from Kyoto University in Japan in 2003. NEDO is Japan’s largest public R&D management organization established in 1980, under the supervision of METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industries). NEDO is addressing energy and global environmental problems and enhancing industrial technology development.