Joichi Ito: Open Networks And Hacker Spaces Can Save The World

Icono clash. Via Fast Company.

Juliet Hindell reports form Japan Society's November 10 event Innovation in an Open Network with MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito. Watch the full video here.

Joichi Ito is the ultimate iconoclast – a college dropout who now heads an academic institution, the MIT Media Lab. He is also the Chair of Creative Commons, the open network organization, and founder of Tokyo-based Digital Garage.

And he recently became involved in Geiger counter production. Six months after partial nuclear meltdowns at three Tokyo Electric Power reactors, skeptical Japanese took nuclear measurement literally into their own hands. And Ito was there, doing what he does best – finding opportunity in chance.

Home-monitoring of radiation is just the latest venture of one of Japan’s foremost entrepreneurs. Ito is most famous for helping usher Japan into the Internet age by cultivating and connecting a generation of angel investors and hungry young Internet entrepreneurs eager to replicate the energy and success of Silicon Valley.

Ito didn’t plan much of this; in fact planning is something he thinks is overrated.

His own Internet career began when he realized that nobody really achieved anything in Japan before the age of 45. In the new virtual world, he discovered it was better to be young. There were no rules and things moved fast and fluidly.

“If you plan everything you can’t be lucky and you need a lot of luck,” he said at a recent talk at the Japan Society. Ito was describing how many great Internet ideas started through chance connexions.

“Nearly every internet company starts out as what sounds like a stupid idea,” Ito said. But a willingness to try things out has resulted in companies like YouTube, which began as a dating site and morphed to become the biggest video site on the Internet. Chance over planning is a foreign concept in Japan. He recalled proposing an idea to a Japanese company, which he estimated would have cost about $100,000 to implement. But the company embarked on a feasibility study at a cost of $3million. “So they spent $3miillion dollars trying to decide to eventually not do something that would have cost $100,000.”

Today with the Internet’s Open Software protocols, anyone can start a company quickly and easily, a process he sums up with the word “agile”. But it’s not a process that lends itself to too much planning. While he thinks the Japanese talent for such business strategies as just in time delivery should sit well with this open architecture, he also warns that when the process is institutionalized, it gets bogged down in over-planning. “You have what I would call a compass, but how exactly you get there you figure out as you go,” Ito said.

Figuring things out is where open networks and hacker spaces have a crucial role to play according to Ito. He believes they are at the forefront of the democratization of knowledge.

We Are Legion: Decentralizing The Internet For Innovation

The general attitude among netizens is that with all the data that comprises the Internet, sharing is caring. Or is it the other way around?

In terms of file sharing, many are familiar with the concept of direct downloading as a means of getting music and videos, and its web of legal issues. An alternative method is BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer system where users simultaneously download and upload pieces of an original file which get shared around the Internet to complete the download. Instead of receiving data from a single source, multiple owners of the file chip in to help others claim their own.

BitTorrent is one example of free and open-source software (FOSS), in which anyone can take available software, make changes, improve, and redistribute it for free as long as they allow others do the same. There is no copyright concern, which can slow or even prevent openly sharing valuable information and knowledge that leads to innovation and breakthroughs. Ultimately FOSS exists to help “individuals and organizations reduce cost, increase use, improve standards compliance, enhance security, and avoid vendor lock-in.”

The philosophy and practical applications of FOSS can help solve impossibly complex problems and even have life-saving ramifications.

In Japan, in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis that led to nuclear crisis at Fukushima, little information was made available for people concerned about radiation levels. Safecast, formerly known as RDTN, took matters into hand by aggregating radiation data from various sources. In the spirit of FOSS, the team makes all data available to everyone after planting static radiation sensors around Japan, as well as utilizing portable Geiger counters that work with mobile devices.

As a forefront advocate for internet freedom and global technology policy, Joichi Ito, director of MIT Media Lab and former CEO of Creative Commons , argues we no longer live in a world of central control but rather in ecosystem of "small pieces loosely joined" with innovation on the edges. The ubiquity and low cost creation and distribution of information has fundamentally changed the way we collaborate.

Ito shares his ideas in Innovation in an Open Network at Japan Society on November 10. Drawing from his work at MIT, he’ll look at startups like Safecast, use of citizen Geiger counters, and other examples of 21st century practices that are bettering the world. Michael Zielenziger, McKinsey Global Institute senior editor and author of Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation moderates.

--Sean Tomizawa

FPA Event of the Week Video

Good news! 

Our event on March 19th, Obama's Internet Initiative & Social Reform in the U.S. & Japan was declared as The Foreign Policy Association's Event of the Week Video, a video series that highlights the most critical and influential lectures, discussions and gatherings in New York City related to U.S. foreign policy and global affairs.

Be sure to check out this enlightening lecture!

The Internet & Social Reform in the U.S. & Japan

Joshua Fouts, Kevin Werbach, Toshihiro Yoshihara, Devin Stewart

Above are some of the participants of March 19's luncheon lecture, Obama's Internet Initiative & Social Reform in the U.S. & Japan which was packed.

Kevin Werbach was quoted in a March 10th LA Times Online article about the ongoing tensions between Google and China. He said that though Google's unofficial motto is "Don't be evil," standing for ideals can be difficult when operating a huge multinational business.

"One reason so few companies make statements like 'Don't be evil' is that in reality the world is not black and white. You're going to come into situations where the right ethical answer isn't entirely clear, and the right economic answer isn't tremendously clear either."

Still, Werbach gave Google credit for making a principled stand, whether or not the company had fully anticipated the implications for its business. The article is definitely worth reading. And if the chemistry between the internet and politics and ethics and economics interests you, Joshua Fouts's Dancing Ink Productions hosts a selection of articles on creativity and the virtual world.

Devin Stewart has also written a very long list of insightful pieces about a plethora of topics, from Toyota to human trafficking to climate change to the freedom of the press in the Arab world. But one article that caught my interest was called, Is Japan Giving Up? Stewart explores the national attitude in Japan and the impact of recent trends in behavior, economics, and foreign relations.

"It would be absurd to give up on a country purely on the basis of its national mood. In fact, Japanese manufacturing output has risen, GDP is picking up, exports have grown their fastest in 30 years, and the trends I have described will all be familiar to any Japan watcher. Moreover, Toyota's sales surged 48 percent last month in Japan. But I have never seen the mood bleaker. Let's hope that this new low provides a rock bottom from which Japanese optimism can rebound."

Obama Mixing it Up

Probably in response to the growing competition, Mixi.jp, by far the largest social network in Japan, is no longer an invite only service.

Led by Japan’s 40th richest man according to Forbes, Mixi boasts over 25,000,000 users, a revenue per member 3 times bigger than Facebook, and attracts several times more visitors than Bebo on a worldwide basis. It has a quasi-monopoly among similar services in Japan (crushing international giants like Facebook or MySpace) and has recently started to diversify it’s offerings with new features such as iPhone apps and a micro-blogging platform similar to Twitter.

Mixi is just one of many Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that have the power to improve productivity, help create internationally competitive businesses and that represent a key to social and organizational reforms. President Obama used ICTs effectively during his presidential campaign. Now in power, his administration makes aggressive use of the social networking tools to develop stimulus policies and other governmental operations. Here, ICTs are not just tools for election campaigns, but for realizing civic participation and transparent policy-making.

Also important is the vibrant blogosphere where discussions about the future of media industries and Internet firm business models are influencing corporate strategies. A pattern is emerging where corporate and policy decision-making is shaped by open Internet-based discussions. Japan has advanced broadband infrastructure and excellent entertainment services. However, comparable progress in reforming business and society is lacking, a problem the Democratic Party of Japan seems keen to address.

Friday, March 19th, Japan Society is hosting a panelist discussion to discuss these topics that's completely free to the public:
Obama's Internet Initiative & Social Reform
in the U.S. & Japan