It’s been nearly two months since I arrived in Iceland. Now I study computer science as a full-time student at Reykjavik University and work a few hours a week at Lepidum, a software company in Japan. I am enjoying this lifestyle in my way. A lot of things don’t go as expected due to this COVID-19 situation, though. After several infections at Reykjavik University in the past two days, I’ve decided to get a screening testing by deCODE genetics next Monday. I hope I am negative.

Sometimes I think about the difference between Iceland and Japan in technology and society. And I’m wondering if I can do any business by leverage this difference based on my career. I hope deCODE genetics would be interested in my experiences and connections as described below.

Lepidum, I currently work for, has expertise in cryptography. I always want to help researchers in cryptography who are struggling to spread advanced cryptographic technology into society. And we’ve done work that is relevant to what deCODE genetics doing.

In addition to it, I used to work for a company Fixstars specialized in software optimization, and my ex-colleagues at that time have achieved great things. I am proud to be personally acquainted with genius programmers in the HPC world as Fugaku won the Top 500 and MN-3 won the Green 500.

I can tell you that those programmers I know are outstanding on a global scale certainly. And researches in drug discovery by using Fugaku has already started.

I believe that Japan still has great science and technology. Furthermore, I am aware that there are quite a few talented individuals in Japan who are contributing to advanced science and technology.

On the other hand, it seems to me that these novel technologies are used not so effectively in society in Japan at present. Instead, it seems to me that we Japanese are overly afraid of these technologies will have impact, possibly negatively, on our society and hesitate to use the technologies in real-world in these days. This is how I feel about it, and I can’t give you a very specific example, though. (Maybe sticking to hanko is one of the examples)

The situation in Japan and the one in Iceland contrast sharply in this point.

Iceland has a small population, so it would be not easy to do big science that requires a large investment. Instead, people in Iceland seem to be very active and good at incorporating new technology into the social system and their everyday life. Health Sector Database, geothermal power, Icelandic identification number, and Hopp might be good examples of this. The fact that the Pirate Party gained significant support in Iceland in 2016 can be seen as a sign of their openness to applying new technologies to social systems.

Many people in Japan complain that Japan is not good enough compared to other countries. I don’t like this manner of speaking so much because there are too many people say like that. But perhaps this is a sign that Japan, which has difficulty changing its own society by itself, is desperately trying to adopt change from the outside.

This year, Toyota started the project called "woven city".

I remember this idea being received positively around the world. I felt that if Iceland had "woven city", it would work very well for both Japan and Iceland.

Although this has been a divergent topic, it is essential to successfully integrate technology and society for Japan to move towards a better future. Japan’s weakness is that it is not able to do this well.

On the other hand, Japan has superior technology and excellent human resources to handle it. This is Japan’s strength.

Japan could provide Iceland with advanced technology, human resources to handle it. Iceland could adapt their social system to the technology and, at the same time, provides a model society to Japan. We might build a complementary relationship in this way.