At our most recent Sony Group Quarterly Meeting, I spoke about "Value Creation Through 'Diversity'." By harnessing our diverse business portfolio, Sony can create value with the aim of contributing to society. Our corporate direction to sustainably generate social value and maintain a high level of profit with a long-term perspective, is based on this belief.

■ Aspiring to Contribute to Society Since Our Founding

Sony has aspired to contribute to society since its founding.

Sony co-founder Ibuka-san personally drove and promoted various social initiatives. In the early days of Sony's history, Ibuka-san, who believed that science education for young generation held the key to Japan's post-war recovery, launched activities to recognize and support schools providing creative and advanced science education, once Sony's business finally began to take off in 1959. And in 1972, he established the Sony Foundation for Education in order to perpetuate these activities. His interest expanded to early childhood education, and in 1969 he set up the Early Development Association. These two institutions were integrated in 2001, and from 2011 the Sony Education Foundation has operated as a non-profit organization.

In 1978, Sony/Taiyo, which is responsible for engineering design to manufacturing of Sony products, was established to promote the social participation of people with disabilities. Ibuka-san encouraged them by saying "persons with disabilities be treated under the same standards without requiring any special privileges, and accomplish work of even better quality than able-bodied individuals." Carrying this philosophy, Kibou Kougyou, a manufacturing facility for speaker systems, was founded in 1981, and Sony/Hikari was founded in 2002, which carries out custodial duties and office support within Sony headquarters. These two companies merged in 2015 to form Sony Kibou/Hikari.

■ Visit to Sony Kibou/Hikari

During my recent visit to Sony Kibou/Hikari's office inside the headquarters building, I was told how they had expanded their field of activities by harnessing their diverse individuality and through their continuous efforts to engage in new endeavors.

With the members of Sony Kibou/Hikari (Click to enlarge)

Currently, a workforce of approximately 80 employees takes care of the maintenance of the Sony headquarters, Osaki and Atsugi offices, handling cleaning and recycling. Additionally, they also provide services such as mail collection and delivery, printing of training documents and business cards, PDF conversions, data input, invoice and document processing, enrollment proceedings for on-premises childcare facilities. I was deeply taken by everyone's passion as they described the work they were each responsible for.

While there, I came across Sony Kibou/Hikari's slogan on the office wall. A line read, "we aspire to deliver kando to all people through our work." These words reminded me how everyone at Sony Kibou/Hikari dedicated themselves each day at work under our shared aspirations as members of the Sony Group. I left my own message for everyone at Sony Kibou/Hikari: "Let diversity be your hope, and let your individuality be your light."^*1

*1) In Japanese, "Kibou" means "hope," and "Hikari" means "light."

■ Projects that Harness Diversity at Sony CSL

In late October, I attended an open house celebrating the 30th anniversary of Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL). As you may know, Sony CSL was founded with the goal of contributing to the development of society and industry through applicable fundamental research, and currently has offices in Tokyo and Paris. What I was reminded again during this open house was not only the exceptional talant of each researchers, but the synergistic effect of diverse specialists from various backgrounds gathering in one place and conducting research. I felt that such mutually stimulating environment must the driving force that enables Sony CSL to continuously deliver high achievements over the past thirty years.

Out of their many projects, I would like to introduce two projects related to harnessing diversity and creating social value.

The first is "synecoculture," a project led by Masatoshi Funabashi that leverages the diversity of organisms and plant life to achieve both social value (economic) and environmental value (biodiversity). By creating an "ultra" biodiverse environment where animals including over 200 species of useful plants co-exist, Funabashi-san's research aims to raise crop productivity without using pesticides or fertilizers, while simultaneously revitalizing areas affected by desertification. From 2015, he has carried out an experimental trial in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and has succeeded in revitalizing desertified land and demonstrated the viability of this method in greatly contributing to the livelihood of local people. Many conservation efforts aim to decrease or minimize our environmental footprint to zero, but Funabashi-san's research instead endeavors to leave the environment healthier than before, which is a very refreshing perspective.

The other project is by Ken Endo, who carries out basic research and product development on prosthetic limbs for athletes. His goal is to develop prosthetics that enable athletes with disabilities to run the 100-meter sprint faster than the able-bodied champion at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Endo-san is conducting R&D on three types of prosthetic legs including robotic limbs, and he also found Xiborg, a company dedicated to developing sports prosthetics. I feel that Xiborg's vision that aims for a society where technology delivers the joy of locomotion to all, has similarities with Sony's aspirations.

Endo-san (right) showing me the newest robotic limb.
In the center is Hiroaki Kitano, President of Sony CSL.

As I have reiterated on many occasions, from a long-term perspective, Sony will aim to contribute in areas such as safety in the age of self-driving cars through our image sensor technology, and supporting precise surgery through medical devices such as ORBEYE, to contribute in the medical field.

In addition to mobility and the medical realm, Sony is working on various initiatives as I have introduced today in this blog post. Let us harness Sony's 'diversity' to create both social and customer value through our businesses, products, and research. I would like to continue to work on these initiatives together with you, as part of our day to day corporate activities.