Akira Kato

Background

About Akira Kato

My own mission is to deliver necessary technology to those who need it, and I want to understand diverse backgrounds and help deliver appropriate technology to as many people as possible. I spent 5 years in healthcare robotics research at a top private university in Japan, where I aimed to improve QoL by developing a motorized prosthetic hand for upper limb amputees based on basic research, but I experienced the difficulty of launching and scaling technology to the market. Afterward, I joined one of the world's leading medical device manufacturers, where I have been engaged in new business development, consulting, and project management in the healthcare field for 4 years, targeting consulting for the entire healthcare domain and medical institutions for the next 5~10 years, with local governments and hospitals as clients. As a result, he developed healthcare mobility that delivers medical services by car together with local governments and medical institutions, but he felt more strongly the difficulty in obtaining investment in line with the company's strategy/portfolio, no matter how much the technology is demanded by the market. Based on these experiences, I would like to be involved in technology discovery/establishment of commercial distribution in Japan and overseas, and the creation/support of new business development at startups and operating companies, in order to deliver technologies that meet the apparent and latent needs of the market to as many users as possible.