TOKYO, Sep 23, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501) today announced that it will hold the "Hitachi Social Innovation Forum 2020 TOKYO ONLINE" from November 4 to 6 as a venue to seek out opportunities for Collaborative Creation with customers and partners, and work towards realizing a sustainable society through the Social Innovation Business.

For its 2021 Mid-term Management Plan, Hitachi has chosen the key message of "Hitachi Social Innovation is POWERING GOOD", focusing all of its energies on working with customers and partners to improve customers' social, environmental and economic value as well as people's Quality of Life (QoL), and realize a sustainable society through the Social Innovation Business.

This will be the 22nd Social Innovation Forum to be held since the event's inception. From the perspective of preventing the spread of COVID-19, this year's event will be held as an online event in which people can participate in various programs on the Internet, instead of the real event held at the venues in previous years, in order to give top priority to the safety and health of our customers, partners and everyone else involved in the event. Hitachi's vision and specific initiatives to lead social change, with an eye on the New Normal, will be introduced through more than 140 different programs.

1. Keynote Speech

Toshiaki Higashihara, President and CEO, will make a presentation titled "Social Innovation Now: Society 5.0 for SDGs". In the midst of accelerating social change, he will talk about how Social Innovation can create a sustainable future, develop a social infrastructure that can respond to pandemics, and continue to create new value for businesses and consumers alike.

2. Special Talks

Moderated by Maoko Kotani, a business news anchor, these sessions will discuss the cross-cutting themes of the New Normal world with experts and Hitachi's initiatives in light of recent global trends.

(1) The Future of Management and Happiness - Considering Essential and Universal Values -

Dr. Yoshiki Ishikawa, a leading researcher in the field of public health, and Kazuo Yano, Fellow of Hitachi, Ltd., will introduce their efforts to create industry with a focus on human well-being in the New Normal society, and discuss the prospects for value creation in an era of unpredictability.

(2) Innovation in the World of the New Normal - How to Attain Sustainable Growth -

Naoki Shibutani, Senior Executive Vice President of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in charge of Technology Strategy, and Norihiro Suzuki, Vice President and Executive Officer, CTO of Hitachi, Ltd., will discuss the prospects for how companies can accelerate digital transformation and customer experience toward value creation and create innovation while SDGs and Society 5.0 are being explored as major elements of the New Normal.

3. Business Sessions/ Expert Sessions

Representatives and experts from each business fields in Hitachi will talk with their customers about the themes related to five business sectors that Hitachi is focusing on: Mobility, Smart Life, Industry, Energy, and IT (14 sessions in total). These presentations will illustrate how Lumada is being used in the Social Innovation Business to realize ideas, such as a "Society Where People Can Live in Safety, Health and Comfort", a "Sustainable Society by Decarbonization", a "Society Co-created by Resilient Value-chains", and a "Society Co-created with Digital Technology".

4. Seminars/ On-demand Videos

In these seminars (58 sessions in total) and on-demand videos (67 contents in total), the people in charge of each project will introduce specific initiatives on the themes of "MOBILITY, LIFE", "ENERGY", "INDUSTRY", and "DIGITAL INNOVATION" while sharing examples of Collaborative Creation with customers. Under the keywords such as "remote," "contactless" or "automation", we will introduce a wide range of solutions which contribute to solving management-related and social issues as human-centric innovation accelerates in the COVID-19 era.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is focused on its Social Innovation Business that combines information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and products. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2019 (ended March 31, 2020) totaled 8,767.2 billion yen ($80.4 billion), and it employed approximately 301,000 people worldwide. Hitachi drives digital innovation across five sectors - Mobility, Smart Life, Industry, Energy and IT - through Lumada, Hitachi's advanced digital solutions, services, and technologies for turning data into insights to drive digital innovation. Its purpose is to deliver solutions that increase social, environmental and economic value for its customers. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at https://www.hitachi.com.

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