Coevolution of Technology Impacting Society and Industry : Outside and Inside the Black Box

Firms competing in increasingly technologically sophisticated markets have encountered a new set of challenges. For the existing firms, responding to customer needs is crucial for survival, while for the society as a whole, there are requirements of widening the reach of the benefits to larger numbers.

At the firm level, maximizing customer satisfaction through providing smart internal manufacturing system and simultaneously securing flexibility corresponding to dynamic, speedy change have become important aspects of survival strategy.

This phenomenon can be envisaged as coevolution of technology impacting society and industry through circumstances external and internal to the firm that affect the customer. Thus, for the customer and the firm, the first important question which can be pointed out is, "How to construct an interface in order to satisfy simultaneous solution for trade-off : maximizing core competence and securing flexibility?"

At the society level, serving the needs of those in society who do not have full access to the market is an equally important goal. What are the aspects, in the notion of coevolution of technology, which can affect the lives of those who cannot yet participate in the market? Can coevolution of technology increase accessibility for treatments of diseases common to the poor, increase availability of public goods such as clean environment or wider public health coverage, and access to basic amenities of life ?

This one-day workshop jointly organized by Tokyo Institute of Technology and the United Nations University/Institute of Advanced Studies tries to address this subject issue, which confronts firms and society in the 21st century.

• 2001年2月3日