On 22nd November, the IJCC highlight event of the year, the Ireland Japan Business Awards 2023 was held in the beautiful surroundings of the Conrad Tokyo.

 

 

This year the Chamber celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding organisation which has evolved over time to the present day Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce. We were privileged to commemorate this significant milestone amongst our Team Ireland colleagues, esteemed guests of the Ireland-Japan business community and members and friends of the IJCC.

 

Guests were greeted with fully staffed bars from the Conrad, the BUSKER and Guinness on arrival. The scene was set with videos from IJBA sponsors on-screen and beautiful Irish music from 2 of our guest musicians, Dai Komatsu and Riko Matsuoka.

 

Once the room was settled, our MC Kenneth Mori McElwain, IJCC member and Professor at the University of Tokyo, guided us through the evening's proceedings.

 

 

Attendees were then greeted with a special video message from the Ambassador of Ireland to Japan, Damien Cole, who highlighted the bond between Ireland and Japan and the business relations between both countries which have sustained such lasting connections.

 

 

IJCC President, Yoshihiro Tsuchiya then took to the podium to share a welcome address. He spoke on the significant growth of the IJCC over the last 50 years since its founding, and our continued commitment to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion within the Board of Directors, and throughout our membership, noting the increase in the number of female Directors and growing membership based in regional areas of Japan and in Ireland. He also extended his thanks to all IJCC board members, Chamber members, and supporters, past and present, for all their contributions to the IJCC.

 

 

Following the address, President Tsuchiya led a toast to all of our guests in both Japanese (kanpai) and Irish (sláinte).

 

 

Our MC Kenneth then announced our first giveaways for the night - the table prizes - generously sponsored by The BUSKER, Toyoko Inn, and ONODA Inc. Guests eagerly checked their nametags for a special sticker to claim the spectacular prizes on each table.

 

 

The dinner course began shortly after, with a delightful array of dishes featuring flavours of Ireland, serviced by the wonderful Conrad service team.

 

 

As guests enjoyed the lovely 4-course dinner, Susan Lawlor, IJCC Director proceeded with the raffle of our grand prize of the evening, a 1-night stay for 2 in a bay view room at the Conrad Tokyo. The room watched in great anticipation as the Wheel of Names spun, announcing our winner on-screen. The grand prize was delivered to the winner's table by one of our fantastic event volunteers. Many thanks again to IJCC Corporate member Conrad Tokyo for their generous prize sponsorship.

 

The remaining prizes were silently delivered directly to the winner's tables over the remainder of the dinner service, with a lovely backdrop of Irish music by 2 guest musicians Dai Komatsu and Koji Nagao. Many thanks to all of our prize sponsors, who donated a total of 38 spectacular prizes to the delight of all attendees:

Nikkei ScoutAsia, Bord Bia, Diageo, Calderwood Images, Ode Inc, ermhoi, An Sólás, Riko Matsuoka, ONODA Inc, Dubarry by Fortune Corporation, British Airways, Next Big Thing KK and the Irish Network Japan.

Finally, the highly anticipated awards ceremony began. MC Kenneth Mori McElwain invited Rory Conaty, Economic Counsellor of the Embassy of Ireland to Japan, and Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, IJCC President to join onstage to start the proceedings.

 

Each year the IJCC has presented award certificates to each awardee in their category. In honour of our 50th anniversary, the IJCC were delighted to present engraved trophies to each awardee for this year's business awards. Many thanks to imageMILL for their generous sponsorship and for the brilliant trophy design.

This year we had a total of 5 award categories: Entrepreneur of the Year, Exporter of the Year (sponsored by Enterprise Ireland), Foreign Direct Investment Award (sponsored by IDA Ireland), Company of the Year and the Special Recognition Award. The room stood still as our MC proceeded to announce the winners for each award category.

 

 

Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Whisk-e (https://whisk-e.co.jp/)

 

 Mr. Kimitaka Toyama, CEO of Whisk-e, received the award on behalf of Whisk-e and shared a winner's speech on receiving the Entrepreneur of the Year award.

The Whisk-e team pictured with the Entrepreneur of the Year award alongside IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy at the 2023 Ireland Japan Business Awards.

 

Comment by Mr. Kimitaka Toyama, President of Whisk-e Ltd (whisk-e.co.jp):

"We are extremely honored to be chosen by the IJCC as Entrepreneur of the Year in 2023. It has been about two years since we started distributing The Busker Irish Whiskey, and this year saw a massive increase in distribution throughout Japan; at retailers, supermarkets, bars and restaurants. There has been huge brand momentum online organically as well as we were the official sponsor of Summer Sonic in both Tokyo and Osaka and this helped us recruit new brand advocates. As the importer and distributor of The Busker Irish Whiskey, we hope we were able to contribute to the growth of the Irish Whiskey category by recruiting new, young drinkers to try Irish Whiskey, and we hope this has also helped to raise the awareness of Ireland across Japan. This wonderful award would not have been possible without the help of everyone who has supported us."

https://www.instagram.com/whiske_jp/
https://whisk-e.co.jp/

 

The following Exporter of the Year award is kindly sponsored by Enterprise Ireland. Our MC invited Neil Cooney, Japan Director of Enterprise Ireland, to join the stage to introduce the award and announce the winner for this category.

Aerogen, headquartered in Galway, Ireland, is a world leader in acute care aerosol drug delivery.
Founded in 1997, the firm recently celebrated a milestone of having produced its 20 millionth nebuliser, a device used by hospital caregivers to aerosolise drugs for respiratory acute care patients.
Aerogen has been doing business in Japan since 2010, and in the last few years has appointed a local team, led by Mr. Toru Sato, Country Manager, to strengthen its presence in the country.

 

Exporter of the Year Award (sponsored by Enterprise Ireland)

Aerogen Japan (https://www.aerogen.jp/)

Mr. Toru Sato, Country Manager of Aerogen Japan, accepted the award on behalf of Aerogen and shared a few words on receiving the Exporter of the Year award sponsored by Enterprise Ireland.

Mr. Toru Sato, pictured with George Onishi, Senior Market Advisor of Enterprise Ireland Japan, alongside IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy, with the Enterprise Ireland Exporter of the Year award.

 

Comment by Mr. Toru Sato, Country Manager, Aerogen Japan:

“We are delighted to be selected by the IJCC for the Exporter of the Year Award in 2023. This award reflects the great support and confidence of our customers and partners in Japan. The team at Aerogen Japan and I look forward to further building our presence and reputation here and making a positive impact on patient care in Japan.”

 

The subsequent Foreign Direct Investment award is sponsored in kind by IDA Ireland. MC Kenneth Mori McElwain invited Robert Nestor, Marketing Executive of IDA Ireland, to take to the stage to introduce the award and announce the award winner.

NEC invested in Ireland through the acquisition of Aspire Technologies in 2022 as part of the company’s strategy to expand global solutions delivery capacity for their industry leading Open RAN 5G applications. Since then they have continued their investment into Ireland, including a multi-year R&D project which will embed a significant upscaling of Talent, Capability and Technology of their operations in Ireland.

 

Foreign Direct Investment Award (sponsored by IDA Ireland)

NEC Corporation (https://www.nec.com/)

Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, General Manager, Global 5G Business Division, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NEC Aspire Technology Limited, received the award on behalf of NEC Corporation and gave a few remarks on being awarded the Foreign Direct Investment Award sponsored by IDA Ireland.

Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, pictured with Robert Nestor, Marketing Executive of IDA Ireland Japan, alongside IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy, with the IDA Ireland Foreign Direct Investment award.

 

Comment by Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, General Manager, Global 5G Business Division, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NEC Aspire Technology Limited:

“We are deeply delighted to have received the Ireland Japan Business Award from the IJCC. NEC and Dublin based Aspire technologies have been strengthening our relationship and creating synergies to develop further telecommunication business and contribute to society. NEC would like to take this opportunity to thank our business partners and anyone else for all the supports on our global business expansion and building a stronger bridge between Japan and Ireland.”

 

NEC Open Network https://www.linkedin.com/company/nec-open-networks

Aspire technology https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspire-technology-limited/

 

Company of the Year Award

Druid Software Ltd. (http://www.druidsoftware.com)

Mr. Mick O'Dwyer, Sales & Marketing Director of Druid Software Ltd., accepted the award on behalf of Druid and shared a winner's speech at the podium on receiving the Company of the Year Award.

Mr. Mick O'Dwyer, pictured with IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy, with the Company of the Year award.

 

Comment by Mr. Liam Lenny, CEO of Druid Software Ltd:

"It is a great honour for Druid to receive this prestigious award from the Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce. We would like to take this opportunity recognise the support and hard work of both our local team at JI Technology and all our Japanese business partners and customers. “Go raibh mile maith agat” to you all.

Though we are a small Irish company, Druid is a leading global provider of the software that is at the heart of private cellular networks. These are mobile networks which can provide high bandwidth, low latency, and highly secure wireless communications for a myriad enterprises, ranging from small offices through to industrial automation, educational institutions to hospitals and from government/military to smart cities and beyond. Japan is at the cutting edge in the development of such networks, and we see a very bright future in this country for Private 4G, 5G and 6G.

Druid will celebrate 24 years in business next year and while we have been engaged in Japan for several years, it is really in the past year that we have seen the extraordinary growth that it is so humbling to be recognized for with this award. The continued support of the Chamber, Enterprise Ireland/Irish Embassy and the wider Irish business community has been integral to our efforts here and that is warmly appreciated."

 

About Druid Software

Druid Software, headquartered in Ireland, is the industry-leader in private cellular network technology, and provides enterprise-grade core network platform to advance connectivity and enable simplified private network management. For almost 25 years, customers and partners worldwide have chosen Raemis ™ platform to connect applications, devices and radios benefiting from enhanced security, performance, and cost-effectiency. Druid’s Raemis™ platform is a mature 3GPP compliant 5G & 4G core network supporting 5G SA, NSA and 4G with unique features designed specifically for business and mission-critical communications, IoT and NTN across all industries. For more information, email enquiries [at] druidsoftware.com or please visit druidsoftware.com. To stay up to date with everything private networks follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

 

Special Recognition Award

Hideki Nakamura (https://www.daon.com/)

Daon has been one of the top digital identity companies and an industry leader in next-gen identity proofing, biometric authentication, and digital onboarding for over 20 years. The Japan Office was set up in 2008, led by Mr. Hideki Nakamura. Subsequently, Daon became the first Irish company to win a government procurement for border control from the Ministry of Justice. Daon's solutions contribute significantly to the prevention of unauthorised entry into Japan from terrorists and anti-social forces organisations. In 2017, a joint venture company between SMBC and NTT DATA was established as the first Fintech company by after the amendment of the Banking Act. Polarify's eKYC solution is currently used by more than 200 companies in Japan.

Mr. Hideki Nakamura accepted the award onstage and shared his comments on receiving the Special Recognition Award.

Mr. Hideki Nakamura, pictured with IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy.

 

Comment by Mr. Hideki Nakamura:

"I am very honoured to receive such an award. In my early-stage business development, we had difficulties as an overseas startup company. For example, our prospects, including financial institutions often mistook Ireland for Iceland, and there were many questions about Daon's credibility and track records in Japan.

We made all the efforts to gain the understanding and trust of our customers. For example, I had to use printed documents when making presentations, instead of using PC Screen, as the papers were still the mainstream in the Japanese companies at that time.

After that, with the support of Enterprise Ireland, we met the right people from each company and managed to achieve this level of success. I am determined to continue our efforts so that Daon products can be of service in Japan."

 

Special Recognition Award

ermhoi (https://ermhoi.com/)

ermhoi is a versatile track maker and singer who proudly embraces her Japanese and Irish heritage while effortlessly exploring various genres.

Released the 1st album "Junior Refugee" from Salvaged Tapes in 2015. Her activities extend beyond providing music for films and TV commercials, as well as remixes, to a wide range of support roles such as vocals, synthesizers, and backing vocals. In addition to collaborating with talented contemporaries such as Shun Ishiwaka (Answer to Remember, CRCK/LCKS, SMTK), Daiki Tsuneta (King Gnu), and Ayatake Ezaki (WONK), she has also shared the stage with visionary musicians like Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O'Rouke, Phew, and Ibeyi, each with their distinct artistic universe.

She has also been selected as featured artists in works by MONDO GROSSO, Tokyo Shio Koji, Sen Morimoto, and Maika Loubté, building relationships with artists active both domestically and internationally. Furthermore, she formed a group called black boboi in 2018 with Utena Kobayashi and Julia Shortreed, and performed at the Red Marquee of "FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL '19". Since 2019, she has also been involved in Millennium Parade led by Daiki Tsuneta.

ermhoi received the award and shared a moving statement on her dual Irish-Japanese identity and the bridging of the two countries through her music in her Special Recognition Award acceptance speech.

ermhoi, pictured with IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy with the Special Recognition Award.

 

Comment by ermhoi:

"I am honoured and grateful for this unique opportunity. As a musician based in Japan, the challenges of COVID-19 deepened my appreciation for cultural exploration. Despite being in Tokyo, my connection to my Irish roots eventually led me to start learning the Irish harp. This recognition is an excellent chance for me to envision a future where my cultural influences blend, creating new musical possibilities and being a part of the bridge between the Irish and Japanese music communities."

 

The Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce extends a very warm Comhghairdeas again to all the award recipients: Whisk-e, Aerogen Japan, NEC Corporation, Druid Software Ltd., Hideki Nakamura and ermhoi.

 

A very special thanks to sponsor imageMILL for designing the IJBA 2023 logowork, event invitations, trophies, and the event and awards animation videos and helping us bring the IJBAs to life every year.

imageMILL is led by founder and creative director Rick Grehan, who sees crucial value in offering a global perspective. With creative skills rooted in multicultural backgrounds, and most of our team members having worked overseas, we provide bilingual communication services and prime advice for Japanese companies aiming to become truly global, at the same time supporting international brands to enter the Japanese market.

To learn more about imageMILL, please visit their website and social channels below:

Website https://www.imagemill.jp/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imagemill/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/imagemill.jp/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/imagemill/

 

This event could not have been successful without our devoted team of staff and volunteers. We would like to thank our brilliant volunteers Tom Toi, Megumi Ikeda, Kazumi Yokota, Kenji Aoki, and IJCC Intern Lake Mizushima for all their tireless efforts behind the scenes.

 

 

A special acknowledgement to all of our musicians who provided top-class entertainment to our esteemed guests throughout the evening. Thank you to Dai Komatsu, Riko Matsuoka and Koji Nagao for their beautiful scene-setting Irish music, to ermhoi and Marty Holoubek for sharing their incredible talent in a special performance on our stage, and to Ryunosuke Miyamoto and Yoichi Suzuki for their moving rendition of Danny Boy. We would also like to thank Shigeru Matsuzaki, our talented photographer, and Takashi Segawa, our wonderful videographer, for capturing our special event.

 

 

Lastly, we would like to extend our warmest thanks to IJCC Platinum Sponsors Toyoko Inn, the BUSKER and Nikkei ScoutAsia for their continued, sustaining support of the Chamber and to all of our generous prize sponsors Toyoko Inn, the BUSKER, Nikkei ScoutAsia, Bord Bia, Diageo, Calderwood Images, Ode Inc, ermhoi, An Sólás, Riko Matsuoka, ONODA Inc, Dubarry by Fortune Corporation, British Airways, Next Big Thing KK and the Irish Network Japan.

 

We closed the evening's celebrations with an IJCC tradition, a sanbonjime led by our longest-serving Director, Philip Greenan.

 

 

Go raibh míle maith agat to everyone who attended this year's Ireland Japan Business Awards and helped us celebrate 50 enduring years of the IJCC. We were honoured that such incredible achievements from the Ireland-Japan community were celebrated on our stage and we sincerely look forward to welcoming you all again next year.