Greetings from DISG Secretariat
Dear Readers,
Greetings to our valued readers! How are you all faring as we near the end of the first quarter of 2024? Many organizations are likely in the process of setting their goals for the remainder of the year, reflecting on the outcomes of the previous year. Similarly, Dialogue for Innovative and Sustainable Growth (DISG) recently convened its first Task Force meeting of the year in February, marking the 13th gathering of its kind.
In this edition of the newsletter, we aim to delve into the background of DISG, introduce the dedicated Task Force members to our esteemed readers, and provide a summary of the key initiatives undertaken in 2023 with a look towards their continuation in 2024. In addition, we are delighted to showcase a captivating highlight video capturing the essence of the ASEAN-Japan Innovation Collaboration from the “Fast Track Pitch Event” held throughout 2023.
Furthermore, in the spirit of innovation, E-DISC under ERIA is inviting startup proposals for the "One ASEAN Startup Award 2024" to be held in October. This initiative seeks to foster open innovation in ASEAN and cultivate a thriving startup ecosystem with tangible impact. We are excited to serve as a platform to promote and support this endeavor.
In summary, this volume will explore two intriguing topics, as outlined below:
- • Introduction of Dialogue for Innovative and Sustainable Growth (DISG) on the Task Force Members and Key Activities
- • ERIA Digital Innovation and Sustainable Economy Centre (E-DISC)’s Call for Proposals: One ASEAN Startup Award 2024
Best regards,
ISHIKAWA Hiroshi
Chair of DISG Task Force
Executive Director, JETRO Singapore
Special Advisor to Minister, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan
Introduction of Dialogue for Innovative and Sustainable Growth (DISG) on the Task Force Members and Key Activities
In the occasion that Dialogue for Innovative and Sustainable Growth (DISG) Task Force held its first meeting of the year on February 21, 2024, this section would like to revisit the background and introduction of DISG, while giving an overview of its key initiatives and activities.
■ Background and Introduction of DISG
In 2020, ASEAN and Japan Economic Ministers (AEM-METI) confirmed the necessity of much closer cooperation between ASEAN and Japan and founded “Dialogue for Innovative and Sustainable Growth (DISG)”, under the initiative of “ASEAN-Japan Economic Resilience Action Plan”, to strengthen industrial competitiveness and address various socio-economic challenges, through providing continuous occasions for discussing ASEAN-Japan cooperation.
The roles of DISG include; (1) Receiving inputs from private sectors of both ASEAN and Japan on innovative and sustainable growth opportunities, and (2) Promoting collaboration of private sectors of both ASEAN and Japan.
DISG holds Task Force regular meeting every 3 months to promote, report, and discuss collaboration between ASEAN and Japan among the members. Participants are government and business organizations from 9 countries in ASEAN and Japan, including, JETRO, AMEICC, AJBC, and ERIA from Japan, ASEAN BAC from ASEAN and Malaysia, ASEAN BAC Brunei from Brunei Darussalam, CCC from Cambodia, KADIN from Indonesia, LNCCI from Laos, TCC from Thailand, VCCI from Vietnam, and PCCI from the Philippines recently joining from February 2024 onward.
In the 13th meeting of DISG Task Force held in February 2024, as the Task Force welcomed PCCI to officially join for the first time, PCCI representative and Executive Vice President, Mr. Perry Ferrer, greeted everyone and gave a remark. He addressed that PCCI is very eager to be a part of the DISG as the largest business organization in the Philippines, representing all 5 major regions, and micro, small, medium, to large enterprises. At last, he concluded that PCCI looks forward to closely collaborate with the group of ASEAN-Japan.
■ Summary of 2023 activities from ASEAN-Japan Economic Co-creation Vision initiatives and future plan for 2024 events and activities
The 13th Meeting of DISG Task Force focused on the report of the initiatives related to 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation that was commemorated through events and initiatives of ASEAN and Japan related parties throughout the previous year of 2023, and the overall plan of the coming year of 2024, in which we’d like to bring you the summary in this volume of the newsletter.
Mr. Ishikawa Hiroshi, Chair of DISG Task Force and Executive Director of JETRO Singapore, gave an opening remark and started with a recap of the Economic Co-creation Vision established last year created by looking back on the 50th year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation, and sets forth for the next 50 years with co-creation as its core concept. This is not a one-sided relationship about creating innovation, but to create innovation together built on the foundation of trust, which Japan has always cherished and will continue on.
Mr. Ishikawa further elaborated on the activities to realize the vision, including (1) Realizing sustainability to balance diversity and inclusiveness, (2) Promoting open innovation beyond borders, (3) Strengthening cyber-physical connectivity, and (4) Building an ecosystem in co-creation dynamic human capital. He looks forward to projects aligned in these pillars in the coming years.
As mentioned above that last year commemorated the 50th year of ASEAN-Japan relations, several initiatives have been kicked-off. In December, “The Commemorative Summit for the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation” was held where the concept of co-creation was shared and the joint declaration was issued at the summit level. Moreover, at the private level, ASEAN-Japan Business Week (AJBW) was held in June, welcoming delegations from ASEAN business advisor councils, and the first Co-creation Forum was held by the year end in Tokyo to coincide with the commemorative summit. This year, the AJBW forum is also being planned to be held in late May, of which the details will be announced by METI at later dates.
In addition to the high-level meetings, several concrete initiatives were started. The following three initiatives were held in collaboration with ASEAN BAC under the signed MOU.
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1) “Young Business Leaders’ Summit” and “Generation Z Business Leaders’ Summit”
With the objective is to build and strengthen mutual understanding and trust, share economic and business challenges and social issues, and discuss and propose ways to cooperate for solutions, the summits were held in Karuizawa last December, emphasized the importance of building interpersonal networks for co-creation between ASEAN and Japan. The event was attended by 40 young business leaders and 60 Gen-Z business leaders.
At the Summit, concrete initiative and policy to promote co-creation were concluded into a joint declaration, which was then handed to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Joko Widodo of Indonesia last year. Consecutively, the recommendations made last year are planned to be implemented along with the Summit again at the end of this year.
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2) “ASEAN-Japan Fast Track Pitch Initiative”
Mr. Yokoi Yuichi, Senior Director for Regional Strategy of JETRO Singapore, presented on the ASEAN-Japan Fast Track Pitch Initiative, which is an open-innovation event held together between ASEAN countries government and Japanese government agencies. In this event, there are challenge owner companies from ASEAN companies and Japan companies, and each of them presents the challenges statements based on their corporate needs or strategies to build new competencies between ASEAN and Japan, where the proposals were called. The challenge owners will then select the proposals for the final pitch to present their solutions at the Fast Track Pitch event.
(Video: DISG Fast Track Pitch Event)
To watch the full video on YouTube, please click LINK.
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Last year in 2023, there were 4 events in 4 ASEAN countries; Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, with a total of nearly 500 proposals and 1,400 audiences online and offline from all over ASEAN and Japan. To watch a summary video from the latest Fast Track Pitch event in Vietnam last November, please click here.
The 500 applications sent to the Fast Track Pitch events in 2023 are from all over the world, with the majority from ASEAN and Japan, and mostly are from early-stage startups. As a result based on the pitch, several concrete collaborations have been formed, namely the partnership about decarbonization in Indonesia, the MOU signed to support carbon credit generation from agricultural sectors in Vietnam, as well as many other projects underway. Mr. Yokoi looks forward to more collaborations this year as well.
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3) “Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC)”
Ms. Fukuchi Mami, Director of Asia and Pacific Division of METI, presented on the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) Leaders Meeting. The first summit was held in December, and the agreement was reached to established the AZEC center in the ERIA (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia). MOUs were signed to advance their missions to the private sectors.
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The commitment made at a summit level includes;
- (1) Basic principles towards decarbonization: Triple breakthrough of simultaneously achieving “decarbonization, economic growth, energy security”, achieving a common goal of “net-zero emissions through various pathways”.
- (2) Policy development support: “Asia Zero Emission Center” to be set up in ERIA, fostering public-private cooperation (AZEC advocacy group).
- (3) Strengthening cooperation on decarbonization technologies, establishing green supply chains for manufacturing industries, promoting transition finance.
The METI provided a report on over 350 tangible cooperation projects, including 70 MOUs signed towards the Leaders Meeting. The leaders expressed broad support to basic principles and high expectations for AZEC activities. Dr. Daniel Yergin, who participated as a guest, also highlighted the importance of realistic energy transitions reflecting factors such as energy security.
Supporting events and research by ASEAN’s Institution
Moreover, last year several events and researches by ASEAN’s institution were also supported. Mr. Fujioka Ryosuke, Chief Representative of AMEICC Secretariat, reported on supporting events and research by ASEAN’s Institution, which started from last year. In 2023, AMEICC has supported 14 events and researches before the AEM-METI Meeting, in order to get inputs for ASEAN-Japan Economic Co-creation Vision. Each program and session have its own characteristics such as (1) more engagement from the young generation, (2) deepening traditional relationship with new agendas (e.g., sustainability), and (3) getting ideas through deep analysis.
To give a clearer picture, Mr. Fujioka presented the pictures from 5 events supported by different institutions, including VCCI and TCC which aggressively collaborate to co-create the momentum through events around the sectors which they’re interested in. He further introduced activities by FMM (Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers), ASEAN Youth Organization, and Mekong Institute which all held fruitful events last year. AMEICC will continue to collaborate and support to materialize the co-creation vision in future.
Grant Supports
Lastly, new grants to support various corporate initiative were established. These grants will fund for proof-of-concept projects, and collaboration between companies in ASEAN and Japan.
Ms. Fukuchi of METI elaborated on “The Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Project” that METI will support investing in countries of the Global South, by creating co-creation projects that meet the needs of partner countries. These projects will not only generate new businesses in the Global South countries and provide solutions to address challenges through technology transfer, but also foster innovation and technology deployment for Japanese companies, achieving a win-win situation. For promoting feasibility studies and pilot projects and contributing to the realization of FOIP, METI has prepared a billion dollars to support collaboration between Japanese companies, JVs with local partner companies of the Global South and etc. Ms. Fukuchi believes that this project will greatly benefit business communities in ASEAN as well. In addition, AMEICC is also developing human resources for Digital Transformation (DX) and Green Transformation (GX) to realize several projects in ASEAN.
The 13th Meeting of DISG Task Force held a fruitful discussion from the participating members at the end, followed by the conclusion that Japan and ASEAN countries will continue to closely collaborate with each other on both public and private levels to achieve the mutual goal of growing together for this year of 2024, and for the next 50 years, and beyond.
ERIA Digital Innovation and Sustainable Economy Centre (E-DISC)’s Call for Proposals: One ASEAN Startup Award 2024
Starting from February to August 2024, ERIA Digital Innovation and Sustainable Economy Centre (E-DISC) is calling for proposals to be nominated and awarded in the “One ASEAN Startup Award” to be held in October this year. The background and details are as follows;
This year, E-DISC presents the One ASEAN Startup Award, under the vision to foster the growth of the startup ecosystem across ASEAN. The award aims to recognize, reward, and promote the brightest innovators to grow rapidly and solve ASEAN-wide issues, and join the journey to drive positive change to influence policymakers toward crafting an environment conducive to startup growth.
ERIA* aims to further promote open innovation in ASEAN, endorsing rewards for initiatives aimed at serving as role models for the future. With the objectives of promoting the formation of the ASEAN startup ecosystem and helping ASEAN countries to achieve startup-driven economic growth, E-DISC targets five main topics in the research project framework: (1) innovation and digital transformation, (2) human development and entrepreneurship, (3) supply chain and one flows, (4) development and governance of technology, and (5) inclusiveness. ERIA is calling for research collaborations with startups, to build a collaborative ecosystem linking research collaborations which have a real-world impact.
■ Award Categories
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1) Digital/AI: Open to startups who utilize artificial intelligence (AI), with applications across sectors, can analyze data, automate tasks, and make predictions.
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2) Impact Startup: Open to startups generating positive social and environmental impacts alongside a financial return, including sectors such as renewable energy, healthcare, education, financial services, and sustainable consumer goods.
■ Awards
Pre-event award: US$10,000 will be granted to the winner in each category as a research fund with the commitment to be an E-DISC research partner. The grant will be 50% funded at the beginning of the research, with the remaining 50% allocated upon submission and acceptance of the research output.
■ Eligibility Criteria
Startup which currently has business operations in Southeast Asia with no limitation on where the startup is from. Nominated entity should propose a research topic with an actual action plan and be willing to work together with ERIA experts on studies.
■ Benefits for Award Winners
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1) Broaden their networks by utilizing the E-DISC network with startup ecosystem key players, including national agencies from ASEAN and member nations, venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and large corporations.
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2) Invited as an E-DISC research partner for report and white paper publication, including policy recommendations.
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3) Research fund to be granted for collaborations with E-DISC. The research duration period is one year, and the results of the research will need to be submitted to ERIA for public publication.
■ Selection Schedule
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1) Five finalist startups to be selected for each category in each pre-event.
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2) Finalist startups will be invited to pre-event to pitch in-person at the event.
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3) Proposals on research topic for each category to be included in each pitch presentation.
*Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) was founded in 2007 to academically support organizations in ASEAN and East Asia though researches and activities, especially to recommend practical policy to economic and political decision makers. For more information about ERIA and E-DISC, click here.
- Call for Proposals: One ASEAN Startup Award 2024 (English) (LINK)
Editorial Note
