This year marked the 10th anniversary of Estonia’s largest startup event, Latitude59. Nearly 2,000 people participated in the international conference, including many Japanese entrepreneurs.

Fukuoka city was the only local Japanese government entity to have a booth at Latitude59. In addition to the booth promoting the city’s startup community, Fukuoka created a special Fukuoka Award. The award was developed to recognize a startup that excelled during Latitude59’s pitch contest. The judges unanimously voted that unique solid coffee startup, Coffee Pixels, had clearly earned the Fukuoka Award. Coffee Pixels was given one round trip ticket to Fukuoka as well as the offer to receive financial aid for renting housing or office space in the city for up to one year.

Creating these specialized awards and attending global events gives the city the opportunity to form ties to global startups and communities. We’ll continue to bring you the latest on the city’s participation in these conferences, and details on how the Fukuoka startup community is both helping to shape and learning from startup communities around the world.

Local Startups Visit InnoVEX 2017

Taipei’s globally recognized COMPUTEX conference is a must-attend event for anyone in the ICT/IoT community. It’s especially popular thanks to InnoVEX, the exhibiting area that showcases innovative startups from around the world.

Fukuoka city joined over 270 companies at this year’s InnoVEX, with about a thousand visitors to the city’s booth. The city promoted Fukuoka’s startup policies and incentives, while also helping to connect two local startups to Taipei’s startup community.

One of these startups, Le ciel, was invited to share the city’s InnoVEX booth. Le ciel is a beauty, fashion, and healthcare audiovisual app. Mr. Kobori, Le ciel’s founder, shares a bit about his time at InnoVEX, “Part of our original global mission has always been to work in Taiwan. That’s why this was such a great opportunity. We appreciate the kind support that we received, and we are sure that the valuable international connections we made will help us to expand our business. The chance to attend InnoVEX really allowed us to accomplish our first global business mission.”