SDGs+Beyond Future Society for Life Week
Life and the SDGs + Beyond: A Dialogue with Eight Thematic Project Producers
Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition
The programme, together with the General Sponsors, explores: 'What insights can be drawn from the reflections by the Thematic Projects (Signature Pavilions) producers for Our Lives and SDGs+Beyond?' (Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition)
Discussion
- Others
| Transmission of simultaneous interpretation | Provided |
|---|---|
| Language of interpretation | Japanese and English |
Reservations are required for this programme.
Booking typically opens with the '2-month advance lottery.' Click below for details.
* Arrive early; latecomers may not be admitted.
For more information about making a reservation to watch a programme.
Please watch the Virtual Studio if you are outside the venue.
-
Agenda2025
Organised Programme
- * Programme times and content are subject to change. Any changes will be announced on this website and via the ticket booking system.
- * The schedule is subject to change depending on the organiser's circumstances.
- Time and
Date of
the event -
-
2025.10.12[Sun]
13:30 ～ 15:00
(Venue Open 13:00)
-
- Venue
- Theme Weeks Studio
Programme details
The concluding highlight of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai’s Theme Weeks will be a special 90-minute panel discussion featuring all eight Theme Project Producers.
Since the earliest stages of preparation, Expo 2025 has been guided by a fundamental question: “What is life?”
Each Producer has explored this profound inquiry through their Signature Pavilion, addressing it from different perspectives—ranging from science and technology to culture, society, and the environment.
In this culminating session, the Producers will come together to reflect on their journeys, share insights from their creative challenges, and reveal how their visions connect to the future of humanity. More than a retrospective, this dialogue will open the central question of “life” toward the future: How can it shape the design of our societies? What challenges must we embrace and pass on to the next generation?
This 90-minute finale will reimagine the vision of a “Future Society for Our Lives” that Expo 2025 aspires to co-create, and serve as a new starting point for collaboration.
As the culmination of the Osaka, Kansai Expo Theme Weeks—and as a dialogue that opens the door to the future—we warmly invite you to join us.
*Simultaneous interpretation is available in both English and Japanese. Please bring a smartphone, tablet or other internet-enabled device with earphones to listen.
Cast
Speakers
Hiroshi Ishiguro
Professor, Osaka University, Visiting Director, ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories
Visiting Director of ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories His research interests are interactive robotics, avatar, and android science. Geminoid is an avatar android that is a copy of himself. In 2011, he won the Osaka Cultural Award. In 2015, he received the Prize for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He was also awarded the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award in Dubai in 2015. Tateisi Award in 2020.
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Sachiko Nakajima
Musician, mathematician and STEAM educator
Sachiko Nakajima is a musician, a mathematics researcher, and a STEAM Educator. She is also CEO of steAm, Inc., and a thematic project producer of Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai, Japan. She also serves as a STEM Girls Ambassador, Cabinet Office. She won the gold medal as the first Japanese woman in the International Mathematical Olympiad. She passionately conducts research on art and technology as well as music, mathematics, and education.
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©蜷川実花
Yoichi Ochiai
Media Artist
Yoichi Ochiai was born in 1987, began working as an artist around 2010. His work is based on the motifs of materialization, transformation, and the longing for mass in the boundary realms. Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba. He has served as a producer of the theme project for the 2025 Japan EXPO in Osaka and Kansai.
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Shinichi Fukuoka
Biologist, Professor,Aoyama Gakuin University
Shinichi Fukuoka was born in Tokyo in 1959. He is a biologist, an author, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University,and a visiting professor at Rockefeller University in the U.S.A.
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Shoji Kawamori
Animation Director, Mechanic Designer, Vision Creator
Vision creator who is an animation director, planner, original developer, screenwriter, film/stage producer, and mechanical designer.
Was one of the original creators of the TV animation series Super Dimension Fortress Macross during his years at Keio University, also designing the three-stage transforming mecha called Valkyrie that appears in the series. Chosen as director of the opera film Macross: Do You Remember Love? at the age of only 23. Other than the Macross series, he is the original creator and director of works such as Earth Maiden Arjuna as well as the Aquarion series. As a mechanical designer, he has participated in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Ghost in the Shell, Cyber Formula and Armored Core as well as designing Sony’s entertainment robot “AIBO ERS-220”, the powered suit “DUALIS” in Nissan’s Dualis commercial and the Sony smartwatch “wena”.
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Kundo Koyama
Broadcast writer,Vice President of Kyoto University of the Arts
First started as a broadcast writer during his years at Nihon University College of Art. Has been involved in developing novel TV shows such as Iron Chef, Kanossa no kutsujoku [Road to Canossa], and Sekai isan [World Heritage]. Won the Screenplay of the Year Award at the 32nd Japan Academy Film Prize and the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 81st Academy Awards for the film Okuribito [Departures]. Has served as a planning committee member for the Agency of Cultural Affairs’ Japan Cultural Expo, panel judge for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s chef award program “Cooking Masters,” and general producer for RED U-35, one of Japan’s largest competitions for young chefs, among others. Has also participated in numerous regional revitalisation projects, including producing Kumamoto Prefecture’s mascot Kumamon and serving as director of Kyotokan in Kyoto.
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©LESLIE KEE
Naomi Kawase
Filmmaker
A filmmaker based in her native Nara, where she continues to create films. Her consistent pursuit of “reality” transcends the boundaries of both documentary and fiction, earning recognition at top-tier festivals including Cannes, even as she expands her artistic reach globally. In 2010, she launched the Nara International Film Festival in her hometown and remains actively involved in nurturing upcoming filmmakers. She serves as Senior Advisor and Theme Producer for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, as well as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Her latest feature film, “Tashika ni Atta Maboroshi” (Yakushima’s Illusion), will be released nationwide on February 6, 2026.
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SDGs+Beyond Future Society for Life Week
Life and the SDGs + Beyond: A Dialogue with Eight Thematic Project Producers
The programme, together with the General Sponsors, explores: 'What insights can be drawn from the reflections by the Thematic Projects (Signature Pavilions) producers for Our Lives and SDGs+Beyond?' (Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition)
-
2025.10.12[Sun]
13:30～15:00
(Venue Open 13:00)
- Theme Weeks Studio
- * Programme times and content are subject to change. Any changes will be announced on this website and via the ticket booking system.
- * The schedule is subject to change depending on the organiser's circumstances.
Reservations are required for this programme.
Booking typically opens with the '2-month advance lottery.' Click below for details.
* Arrive early; latecomers may not be admitted.
For more information about making a reservation to watch a programme.
Please watch the Virtual Studio if you are outside the venue.
OTHER PROGRAM
SDGs+Beyond Future Society for Life Week
