On Thursday, April 23, 2015, we participated in the "France – Fukuoka (Kyushu) Economic Forum 2015" held at the Conference Room of the Denki Building Kyoso-kan.

This forum was co-sponsored by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan and the Fukuoka Convention & Visitors Bureau, with the aim of promoting interactive business exchange between France and Fukuoka (Kyushu). The theme of this third session was "Possibilities for Japan-France collaboration to realize the smart city concept in Fukuoka.” Presentations regarding each of its own smart city initiatives were made by four Japanese subsidiaries of French companies, one Japanese company, the French Embassy in Japan, and Kyushu University.

From Kyushu University, Professor Hiroto Yasuura, research advisor of Center for Co-evolutionary Social System, gave a presentation titled "Urban OS and Smart Cities" on the necessity of building smart cities using information and communication technology (hereafter ICT).

In the presentation, he proposed an "urban OS" that provides people with standardized services using various information (traffic, disaster prevention, human flow, crime prevention, etc.) derived from open data/big data generated from the rapid advancement of ICT. Various cities around the world can share in the "city OS” mechanism. We believe this will lead to more businesses opportunities in various fields.

As the Center for Co-Evolutional Social Systems, we would like to continue participating in similar forums to induce public understanding of our smart city initiatives that utilize "urban OS."