Kickstarting Kansai: Rocket Pitch Night launches in Osaka for the second time

J-STORIES – After a profitable occasion final 12 months, Rocket Pitch Evening 2024 is again in Kansai, gathering some 600 startup lovers in Osaka on Friday (September 6). Launched in 2019, Rocket Pitch Evening is a flagship challenge of Enterprise Café Tokyo that goals to “speed up entrepreneurial exercise in Japan.”

The occasion in western Japan was held as a part of collaboration between Ritsumeikan College and Boston-based non-profit group Enterprise Cafe’s Japan department. It drew 40 startups throughout Japan taking part in 4 classes: medical/healthcare, social/schooling, AI/VR, and design/agriculture. Every startup was given three minutes and three slides to current their progressive concepts, following the pitch format from Babson School, which has been ranked as No. 1 in entrepreneurship for the previous 31 consecutive years by U.S. Information & World Report.

Attendees use a QR code to submit their opinion on the Individuals’s Alternative award at Ritsumeikan College, Osaka Ibaraki Campus on Sep. 6, 2024. Supply: Enterprise Cafe Tokyo (Identical under)

Within the medical/healthcare class, contributors supplied tech-powered options to medical points reminiscent of loneliness, stress administration, and early detection and remedy of ailments like most cancers and diabetes.

Rocket Pitch Night 2024 came back to Osaka after its successful launch in the city last year — Rocket Pitch Evening 2024 got here again to Osaka after its profitable launch within the metropolis final 12 months

One of many startups was Kyoto-based medical firm Second Coronary heart, which aspires to remove diabetic foot amputations utilizing a well being administration app. Yukihiro Ishida, founder and CEO of Second Coronary heart, advised the viewers that it plans to offer companies in Malaysia, which has one of many highest charges of diabetes on this planet.

“After Malaysia, we’ll in all probability broaden into Singapore and Indonesia and attempt to IPO in Singapore. We imagine that can be a pure path for our progress,” he mentioned.

With practically twenty years of expertise as a medical engineer in Japan, Ishida had met a whole bunch of diabetic sufferers, together with some who ultimately needed to have their limbs amputated.

Yukihiro Ishida, founder and CEO of Second Heart, explains his medical startup's tech-powered solutions to eliminating diabetic foot amputations across Asia. — Yukihiro Ishida, founder and CEO of Second Coronary heart, explains his medical startup’s tech-powered options to eliminating diabetic foot amputations throughout Asia.

“Now that we’ve got all the things we have to fight this international drawback, we need to fulfill our mission to finish foot amputation,” he mentioned.

Enterprise Cafe plans to open its second and third Asian workplace in Fukuoka and Yokohama late this 12 months, which it hopes will function gateways for startups between Japan and Asia.