On Monday, October 30th, five people from Oulu, Finland, including a director of Oulu University Hospital and a network director of BusinessOulu, an economic development agency of the city, visited SHI. Having a solid ground on a world-class ICT industry and education, Oulu is known as 'The Silicon Valley in Europe' and in 2014, the city concluded a memorandum of understanding with Kanagawa Prefecture on life sciences.

  Following an introduction of the Graduate School of Health Innovation from Dr. Narimatsu, we had a presentation on a unique healthcare ecosystem called 'OuluHealth' from Ms. Minna Komu, a network director of BusinessOulu, and on ME-BYO Cohort Study in Kanagawa from Dr. Nakamura. We also had a presentation on the current situation of oral health in Japan from Dr. Kubota, and on a Cyberdyne's robotsuit HAL from Mr. Makoto Nagasawa in our PhD course.

  Among the presentations, many questions were given from those from Oulu,  regarding the activities on ME-BYO concept in Kanagawa, the projects of our Center for Innovation Policy, and so on. We also discussed ideas for our future collaboration.