AI Hackathon at Google for Developers Tokyo × TapNow 🇨🇳

15, Jul, 2026

Google for Developers × TapNow: Why AI Learning Must Move Beyond Prompts

More than 250 participants signed up in Tokyo to experience a new model of AI education: team building, learning, and creating in one evening.

Artificial intelligence is changing rapidly. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear: The future isn't defined by who knows the most AI tools.

It's defined by who can turn ideas into reality.  

That philosophy was at the heart of the recent Google for Developers × TapNow AI Creator Challenge, held at Google Japan's Shibuya office. With over 250 registrations, the event brought together students, creators, entrepreneurs, marketers, and developers, not simply to learn AI, but to create with it.

◼︎More Than Another AI Workshop

Unlike traditional AI seminars, the event wasn't designed around passive learning.

Participants experienced an entire creative journey in a single evening:

• Understanding how AI is changing creative work through an expert panel discussion.

• Learning image and video generation during a beginner-friendly Nano Banana workshop.

• Exploring AI video production using TapNow.

• Building an AI-generated commercial addressing real social challenges in Japan.

Instead of ending with "Now you know how AI works," the event challenged participants to ask, "Now, what can you create?"

◼︎The Most Interesting Moment

During the Nano Banana workshop, participants often started from the same prompt.

Yet every output was different. Some imagined playful stories. Others focused on emotional branding. Some approached the challenge like filmmakers. Others thought like marketers. The technology was identical. The creativity wasn't. AI didn't replace imagination. It amplified it.

◼︎AI Education Is Changing

For years, technology education focused on learning tools. Today's challenge is different.

The barrier to creating images, videos, and content is becoming lower every month. The real competitive advantage is no longer access to AI. It is the ability to combine creativity, storytelling, collaboration, and execution. This event reflected that shift. Participants didn't simply watch demonstrations. They built something together.

◼︎Why This Matters

Events like this show that the future of AI education isn't about producing more AI users.

It's about producing more creators. The ability to transform an idea into something meaningful, whether a campaign, a product, or a story, may become one of the most valuable skills in the AI era. And perhaps that's the biggest lesson from the Google for Developers × TapNow AI Creator Challenge. AI isn't replacing creativity. It's giving more people the opportunity to express it.

◼︎Why The World Should Pay Attention

Around the world, many conversations about AI focus on efficiency. Tokyo is adding something different to that conversation.

Creativity. Community. Collaboration.

As AI lowers the barrier to creating products, videos, campaigns, and businesses, the real competitive advantage will no longer be access to technology. It will be imagination. Events like this prove that the future belongs not to the people who simply know AI......but to the people who know what to build with it. Tokyo is quietly becoming a place where those creators are gathering. And I believe this is only the beginning.

#AI #GoogleForDevelopers #TapNow #Tokyo #Innovation #GenerativeAI #Hackathon #Startups #Community #Creativity

Inside Tokyo's Global Startup Communities: Building Connections Beyond Borders.

21, Jul, 20262026

Communities are the real infrastructure of innovation.

When people think about startup ecosystems, they often focus on funding, accelerators, or technology. But after spending years building communities across universities, startups, corporations, and local governments, I've come to believe something different.

Without communities, ideas remain isolated. Without them, opportunities never happen.

◼︎Tokyo is changing.

Tokyo has long been recognized as one of the world's largest economic centers. Today, however, something new is happening.

Beyond government initiatives and corporate innovation programs, a growing number of community-led ecosystems are connecting founders, students, researchers, investors, and global talent. These communities are quietly becoming one of Tokyo's greatest strengths.

◼︎Community is not an event.

It is infrastructure. This week perfectly illustrated that idea. On the same day, I hosted two completely different communities.

One brought together entrepreneurs and alumni from one of Japan's most international universities.

The other gathered researchers, startup founders, local government, and ecosystem builders to discuss regional innovation and Fukushima's recovery.

Different audiences, different themes, yet both had the same purpose: creating opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist.

◼︎Rebuilding the APU spirit in Tokyo

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU) is unlike almost any university in Japan.

With students from over 100 countries and regions and nearly half of its student body coming from overseas, diversity is part of everyday life. Yet graduation creates a challenge. Graduates scatter across the world. The community becomes global but also fragmented.

As an alumna, every time I returned to APU as a guest speaker, one question stayed with me.

How can I recreate that environment in Tokyo?

Together with Francisco Dalla Rosa Soares and the international community he has built through the Tokyo Startup Lunch Club, we are connecting two ecosystems: one shaped by a globally minded university, and another shaped by Tokyo's international startup scene.

The Tokyo Startup Lunch Club is a weekly community where entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, and startup enthusiasts gather over lunch to exchange ideas and build meaningful relationships. Instead of formal presentations or pitches, the community encourages open conversations that often lead to unexpected collaborations.

By bringing this community together with APU's global network, we are creating a space where people from different cultures, industries, and backgrounds can connect naturally.

◼︎Crossing Academia, Business, and Local Government

Later that same day, we gathered at the Minato City Industrial Promotion Center, one of Tokyo's newest hubs for entrepreneurship, business support, and cross-sector collaboration. Designed as a place where companies, entrepreneurs, researchers, and local communities can connect, the center reflects an important shift in how Tokyo is fostering innovation, not only by supporting startups, but by creating spaces where different sectors can work together.

Our discussion was led by Professor Saja Kesht Kar from Tokyo Metropolitan University, who shared his experiences visiting Fukushima and explored how community can become a driving force for regional revitalization.

As we listened, we held peaches brought from Fukushima. It was a simple gesture, but one that transformed the conversation. Rather than discussing regional recovery as an abstract policy topic, we were reminded that every community has its own stories, people, and identity.

What struck me most was not only the discussion itself, but the diversity of the people around the table. Researchers, entrepreneurs, community organizers, and professionals from different backgrounds were exchanging ideas as equals.

This is exactly the kind of environment where innovation begins. Universities contribute knowledge and long-term research.

Entrepreneurs bring speed and experimentation. Local governments create the conditions that allow new ideas to grow.

Communities connect them all.

In many ways, the Minato City Industrial Promotion Center represents something larger than a venue. It represents Tokyo's growing recognition that innovation does not happen inside a single organization—it emerges when academia, industry, government, and local communities are brought into the same conversation.

◼︎Why this matters

Many people assume international ecosystems are built through large conferences or government programs. Those certainly help.

But sustainable ecosystems are created through consistent, trusted relationships. A weekly lunch, a monthly meetup, and shared conversation. These seemingly small moments accumulate into partnerships, startups, and cross-border collaboration.

Communities are not a by-product of innovation.

◼︎My mission

As a Japanese entrepreneur working across startups, universities, corporations, and local governments, I see my role as connecting these worlds. Not simply organizing events. But designing environments where people from different languages, cultures, and industries can meet naturally. Because Tokyo has all the ingredients to become one of Asia's most international startup ecosystems.

The challenge is not talent. It is connection. And communities are how we build those connections.

Communities are built around people, not places. And the people who build communities shape the future of startup ecosystems.