Message from the President September.2020

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, various large-scale events have been cancelled or changed to online events. Significant examples are the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC; a comprehensive trade show for cutting-edge IT and electronics) to be held in October in Japan and the Consumer Electronic Show (CES; the world’s largest consumer electronics show) to be held overseas in January 2021. The real world that we have taken for granted is being forced to move into the virtual world.

However, I believe that as long as this is seen as a substitute, there will be no innovative changes. Rather than returning to the old situation, being the first to devise ways of responding to current changes and putting them into action will lead to innovation. It is important to direct ideas and thinking towards the future, not towards the past. The above two events were changed to online events, because the safety of exhibitors and participants is considered the top priority. In this situation, participants will be provided with new added value. I believe that everyone hopes that innovative changes will be made to conventional events through plans and themes that can only be achieved online.

It is common knowledge that COVID-19 has been creating a great chain reaction of negativity. Yet it is also true that it has become the catalyst for the advent of new technologies that address social issues, arriving one after the other at an unprecedented pace.

Changes in our ways of life and work patterns, which we now call the “new normal” are expected to be established early. For example, a shift from face-to-face communication to online communication is currently underway and we can really feel that the advantages of online communication, such as the elimination of travel time, effort and cost, outweigh the disadvantages such as no face-to-face communication and interaction that is perhaps less smooth than it is in person. Once COVID-19 is contained, technologies that make optimum use of these advantages will naturally evolve and permeate every aspect of our activities before we realize it.

I urge all of you to assess the changing advantages and adapt to them promptly, rather than simply viewing the dramatic changes in the world that are taking place due to the coronavirus as temporary substitutes. I hope you will generate innovative change by fully harnessing new technologies.