How to help: Social innovation and collaboration during the pandemic

Robin is the Co-founder of MyMizu - Japan's first water refill app with a mission to reduce consumption of plastic. He is also the Co-founder & Director of Social Innovation Japan - a platform for social good - and is a Consultant at the World Bank (Climate Change Group, GFDRR).

He has 10 years’ experience across 20+ countries with inter-governmental organisations, social enterprises and NGOs. Robin has managed humanitarian operations in countries such as Haiti, Nepal, Vanuatu and Mozambique and has also worked in governmental processes related to climate and disaster resilience. In 2017, he took on a sponsored photo-documentary project, which involved walking 600+km solo along the Tohoku region's coastline. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Shibuya QWS Innovation Council and has an MA in International Business (University of Edinburgh).

Ohigashi joined GMO Internet, Inc. in 2002. After working as General Manager in three divisions (access, domain, and IxP Division), he established GMO Registry, Inc. in 2009 and became Managing Director. He went independent in 2013 and engaged in data analysis for online contents / news media, online optimization using machine learning, etc.

Ohigashi joined CAMPFIRE, Inc. in 2018, and after working as Manager of the Cross-border division, he became Director of the company in March 2019.

Akemi Tsunagawa, is the Founder and CEO of Bespoke, Inc. – an AI startup founded in 2015 and located in Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Bespoke is known for its AI-Powered Customer Engagement Platform for the travel & hospitality industry to drive ancillary sales and to help with crisis management. Prior to Bespoke, Akemi worked at Fidelity Investments, Deloitte, and Macquarie Capital after graduating from UCLA.

Dimitry Rakin is the Associate Director of the Economist Corporate Network North Asia, where he is responsible for events planning, private briefings, data analysis and research in Japan and South Korea. He is an expert on Japanese economy, business and trade as well as on the history and politics of the East Asia region.

Prior to joining The Economist Group, Dimitry was a Senior Officer of Economic Affairs in the Trade Delegation Unit of the Russian Embassy in Japan connecting Russian and Japanese companies, promoting Russia as an investment destination and facilitating Russia-Japan intergovernmental negotiations on economic cooperation. He started his career as an editor covering East Asia in one of the biggest Russian news agencies (ITAR-TASS) working in the central office and Tokyo Bureau of the agency.

Dimitry has an MA degree in Japanese language and history from the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) and was also a Japanese government (MEXT) research scholar at Meiji University’s Graduate School of Law, Tokyo. In addition to native Russian language skills, he is fluent in English and Japanese.