AIST REPORT 2012

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Open InnovationResearch Report: “Partnership” Research by AIST (I)The process of investigating in a disaster zone as a research subjectAfter the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, deputy research director Kohtaro Ohba, a native of Sendai city, made numerous visits to cities in the disaster area including Sendai, Ishinomaki and Rikuzentakata. He witnessed the harsh reality of lines of coffins waiting as the fire service and self-defence forces searched for the missing. Day after day, he asked himself what he as a scientist could possibly do.In August 2011 he proposed the “Kesennuma Kizuna Project”. Along with ten or so volunteers from AIST, he commenced activities in October. The project studied the connections between people and applied the findings to lifestyle support technologies in the disaster area.The project investigated how to strengthen interactions with disaster victims and what they needed in the places where they were located. However, the process of investigation itself became an important subject of research. Along with politicians and the media, researchers are the least popular kind of people in a disaster zone. The feeling of disaster victims is that they are not guinea pigs and that research is a nuisance.Given this situation, what is effective for interaction in the field is conversation of a very old-fashioned kind, with people talking face-to-face while drinking at social gatherings. Senior researcher Kazuhiro Kojima went to live in the disaster zone and got involved in the gradually changing community. This immersive approach is called community-based participatory research (CBPR). It is a new approach which has not previously been put into practice by engineers in a disaster zone.What is important is the ability to respond to changeIn January 2012, we installed three mobile homes at the Goemongahara temporary housing site. AIST set them up in partnership with the NPO Lake Kawaguchi Nature House, Cumberland Japan Co. Ltd., Teijin Ltd., Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Itochu Techno-solutions Corporation, Itochu Corporation, Accenture Japan Ltd., and others. We used one mobile home as a support base for AIST and a living space for Kazuhiro Kojima, and used the other two for various kinds of interaction and the sale of foods and household supplies.Our partner companies voluntarily provided a variety of technologies and resources including a power management system with solar power generation and storage batteries, combined heat and power generation, a water purification system, an electric car and a walking assistant robot. Our objective was to implement smart life care, providing comprehensive support for energy, information, transport, and daily living.The mobile homes attracted a lot of attention and were widely reported on as a means of support utilizing leading edge technologies. However, according to Kazuhiro Kojima, this was not the main point of the research.“Our main interest was in substantiating what form a smart community in which people are connected together should take and how technology should be employed in such a community. For example, in supporting mobility, both mobility for daily activities in the recovery period and mobility to enable a vibrant community in the rebuilding period must be considered. It is then important to carefully examine the technologies that are needed and progressively adapt them to the situation in the field. When we technologists are in the field, we can flexibly respond to changes. I think that is the main issue.”The Challenges of the Kesennuma Kizuna ProjectLast year, AIST launched a cross-discipline partnership project in the disaster zone of the Great East Japan Earthquake. We started new activities for implementing smart communities and studying connections between people. This research started with the question of how we could build the relationships of trust that would be the basis of partnerships.Temporary housing built on a baseball field (left). A multi-purpose support trailer under the management of a local NPO (right). It was used for a wide range of interactions, such as social events and various classes.14|Open Innovation

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