Japanese IT service provider, NTT Data, is all set to host The Global Open Innovation Business Contest 5.0 in March 2017 to promote collaborations with startup companies worldwide. Prior to the main event which is to be held in Tokyo, the team is busy hosting the preliminary rounds across 10 locations worldwide.
We caught up with Kotaro Zanma, Head of Open Innovation and Business Emergence at NTT Data for an exclusive interview at Startupbootcamp FinTech, Singapore, which has collaborated with them to attract the best talent from Singapore and other nations.
The firm has organized the contest four times domestically and now they want to go global, hence, the pre-contests across ten cities. As NTT data specializes in social and ICT infrastructure they want to leverage startups in terms of innovation primarily. Many of the challenges might still be Japanese-focused but for the event, the venues go global and so does the target market. When asked the reason behind India not being one of the ten cities, Kotaro commented,
We have strapped the event together in a hurry, so we didn’t have the time to include India for the next round which is in February.
Quite rightly, NTT took the notch higher by going from a single city contest to being organized in ten distinct cities. He added, that they are certainly looking for a good local partner in India to expand, and if things go down well, they’ll definitely go ahead.
Kotaro further told considering Singapore as the Southeast Asian hub they hope to come across some good ideas which perhaps are not restricted to a particular domain. So far, judging from the responses NTT has received, Singapore seems to witness a rising growth and expansion of firms specializing in financial services. This can be attributed primarily to the strong support and regulation by Singapore government.
He further adds it is one of the countries that NTT focuses in expanding to and, they are increasing their personnel and capital. With various technologies and innovations coming up, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality manage to take the center of the stage.
Though NTT primarily focuses on IT sector, Kotaro says Virtual Reality is debuting the business domain sometime soon and quoted an example to prove the technologies’ relevance in this sector saying, in case of life insurance you let the potential client see twenty years from now via VR glasses – how he has aged in the time period and suddenly realize importance of life insurance.
NTT has a subsidiary in India and is in talks with them to identify the India-specific differentiator to tap into those resources. So, to explore the kind of startups that happen only in India.
The Japanese corporation intents to support potential startups in their regulatory aspect, ICT infrastructure and also customer relationships. It has played a major role in providing the appropriate financial infrastructure for business development. For example, if any of their clients want to leverage new ideas and technology of fintech companies, they would not be able to test it themselves as it is risky and requires too much expertise, so they turn to them and hence, NTT acts as a bridge between the two.
Startups specializing in fields such as Fintech, IoT, energy, Insurtech, Big Data, digital marketing, Blockchain, API, personal data, AI, Cyber-Security, Virtual/Augmented Reality, or Robotics are eligible to submit a proposal for a venture business. The Grand Finale winner will receive a three-month in-kind contribution worth US$30,000 to support the development of their proposed new business. The team, with this contest, aims to solve key issues in global society by combining knowledge, technologies and networks both inside and outside of the company.
