SRI completes Global Startup Campus team: Directors appointed

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Cabinet Office and Japan Science and Technology Agency approve David Schwartz and Kenji Yoshihira to lead research themes under Japan’s Global Startup Campus Initiative.

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SRI today announced that its Global Startup Campus team is complete. Japan’s Cabinet Office has approved David Schwartz and Kenji Yoshihira as Venture Directors. The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) formally appointed them to serve in the Global Startup Campus Initiative Preliminary International Joint Research Program.

Under the JST program, SRI recruited and nominated both Venture Directors, and each will lead an innovative research theme. They will shape the research vision, identify deep tech related research problems, design programs that foster higher risk/higher reward solutions, evaluate candidate projects, and help the projects achieve real-world impact.

“By drawing on its Silicon Valley experience, SRI will use this program to support the vision of Japan’s leaders for increased technology-based entrepreneurship,” said Roland Stephen, SRI Director. “The Venture Directors were carefully selected to realize this critical goal.” 

“By drawing on its Silicon Valley experience, SRI will use this program to support the vision of Japan’s leaders for increased technology-based entrepreneurship.”

Roland Stephen, SRI Director

David Schwartz has spent more than 16 years turning deep-tech research into commercial and social impact in energy, advanced materials, and flexible electronics. At PARC and later SRI, he rose from postdoctoral researcher to Director for Energy and Sustainability. In that work, he led interdisciplinary research teams, managed a multimillion-dollar portfolio, and secured tens of millions of dollars in funding, much of it from ARPA-E. He founded the consultancy Oropendola Technology and Innovation and serves as Chief Innovation Officer at HyReveal. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.

Kenji Yoshihira is a technology executive who works across Japan and the United States to translate advanced research into commercial technologies and new businesses. At NEC Laboratories America, he led research-to-business initiatives that helped bring machine learning and complex systems management technologies into products and industrial applications. He also planned and coordinated collaborative research programs involving more than 40 U.S. universities. He is a named inventor on more than 40 patents and serves as a Visiting Professor at the University of Electro-Communications. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from New York University and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

The Global Startup Campus Initiative is a Japanese government effort to build a world-class hub where research, entrepreneurship, and global talent come together to launch deep-tech ventures. SRI brings eight decades of experience turning research into companies and products to this effort.