In addition to supporting our portfolio companies in US and Japan, supporting our corporate partners in their innovation efforts is a key part of our mission at World Innovation Lab (WiL) - to be the bridge between startups and corporates across key innovation hubs around the globe. In fact, this work is how we build and strengthen our corporate partner network in Japan and throughout Asia, which in turn enables us to offer deep and wide access to government and corporate resources and partnership opportunities to our portfolio companies when expanding into those markets.
This Innovator Series Tech Talk co-hosted with our portfolio company Intertrust provides a glimpse into the kinds of innovation initiatives one of our corporate partners, Suzuki, is undertaking, and how we are supporting them.
Rethinking Future of Mobility: A Human-centered Approach
As Suzuki is rethinking the future of mobility, they are returning to their founder’s vision of customer-centric innovation and continuous improvement. This human-centered approach is at the core of Suzuki’s new business and product development efforts and has set the tone for their long-term vision on innovation.
Generation Z’s influence and the rapidly aging population, especially in Japan, are trends both WiL and Suzuki are watching, and which have the potential for rapid international impact. In the latest Innovator series Tech Talk, Soumya Mandal, Manager of Technology Research at Suzuki, and WiL Partner Aki Koto discussed the influence Gen Z has on Suzuki’s autonomous driving initiatives, along with designing new mobility solutions for the elderly.
A Quick Win in Traffic: Air Quality & Safety
When Soumya and two others from Suzuki were given the opportunity to form the Technology Research Division team (TRD) 3 years ago, they ventured out to Silicon Valley where Soumya first focused on one looming challenge surrounding mobility - air quality. According to Suzuki research, 92% of the world’s population lives in locations with sub-par breathing air quality; fast-growing cities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific are among the most impacted. India, which houses 16 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities, listed air pollution as a health emergency. 
Further user interviews revealed a major pain point for drivers and passengers - that they do not feel “safe” while commuting due to lack of information on air quality, and a few are just left unaware of this “invisible poison”. This unmet need for drivers to know the air quality around them in real-time led to a simple concept to provide peace of mind: an alert system showing the driver the ambient air quality using colors; green for safe air, and red to let drivers know to roll up the windows or take the car instead of the motorbike to work. From there, Suzuki went on to collaborate with a number of startups in sensor technology as well as edge and cloud computing in co-developing the air quality sensing, prediction, and visualization features. This initiative could make Suzuki Maruti the first automotive company in India to offer accessibility to highly accurate and real-time air quality information.
Practical and Personal: Designing for Gen Z and the Future
Another issue Soumya tackled was mobility needs for Gen Z, an estimated 390 million people born after 2000, an increasingly important demographic. Informed by WiL’s study on Gen Z conducted by a number of our Student Partners, Suzuki set out to explore how to address the following pain points in the current commuting experience:
- Overall time spent commuting
- Lack of visibility into which commute routes are safer
- Lack of personalization in mobility options (pictures and accessories)
- Decreased productivity due to commuting
With these crucial consumer needs in mind, with facilitation from WiL, Suzuki engaged a team of researchers from UC Berkeley, made up of mostly Generation Z members. Together, they set out to explore how the company could design a space that fulfills the unmet needs surrounding Gen Z mobility challenges. 
What they found as a common thread in these pain points were that Gen Z valued comfort and peace of mind more so than previous generations, mainly fuelled by the widespread use of rideshare services like Uber / Lyft, as well as data-based navigation tools like Google Maps and Waze. What came to the team’s mind was the Japanese term “Anshin,” or sense of security. Simply put, will Gen Z consumers be comfortable in this future space we create?
The team decided to continue with two primary recommendations. The first is adding interior sensors and lighting to help drivers reduce drowsiness, and another focused on psychological comfort through adding a touch of personalization via picture frames in each vehicle. Read more about the initial phase of project here.
Design Thinking for the Senior Population: Forever Mobile
The purpose of Design Thinking is to focus on the core problem instead of jumping to quick-fix solutions to problems that often don’t exist. This idea resonates with Suzuki’s founding original maxim of serving the greater good through intense focus on the customer. With Soumya’s Gen Z mobility project in mind, WiL Partner Aki Koto discussed human-centered design for the senior population and delved into one of Suzuki’s flagship projects with WiL participation - Kupo, Suzuki’s new solution addressing mobility for seniors. 
Departing from their traditional way of product research which may take up to multiple years, Suzuki sent three young, ambitious engineers to Silicon Valley for 6 months. They stayed at an Airbnb and conducted daily brainstorm then prototyping sessions. They volunteered to work at wheelchair stores to observe how people buy wheelchairs. They participated in events and workshops for the elderly in senior communities and housing, deepening their understanding of the setbacks and emotional distance the elderly felt from the environment they lived within. They also conducted empathy interviews with over 150 people in the US and Japan to bolster their understanding of issues inherent to this unequivocally learned, experienced yet isolated population. They even tried to use a wheelchair in daily life as much as possible, in US and Japan, to further their empathy research.
The result was a bit surprising - turns out, senior citizens want to be mobile for as long as they can, with the safe fallback of a wheelchair. The findings led to the Kupo design of being both an electric wheelchair as well as a walker, giving seniors the choice of walking or sitting whenever they desire. Soumya and Aki both mentioned that the team might not have achieved this in such a short time had they not applied Design Thinking and empathy-based techniques.
WiL and the World
Through programs with Suzuki and other Japanese corporate partners, WiL is creating cross-border growth for both startups and enterprises, while empowering entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial communities through investments, partnerships, and events that bring them together. This particular example of Design Thinking elaborates on WiL’s thesis: infused by Japanese design concepts and terms around human-centered needs, these theories will translate into concrete business value, and furthers WiL’s vision to be the bridge between startups and corporates across key innovation hubs around the globe. Read more about our involvement and thoughts about mobility and corporate innovation trends here on our blog.