UNIDO ITPO Tokyo cooperated with Nikkei BP Cleantech Institute and Yokohama City and jointly organized a half day visit for Embassy officials from developing and emerging countries to the Social Innovation 2014 exhibition and Yokohama Day exhibition, which took place during “Smart City Week 2014” in Yokohama City.

14 diplomats (from 11 countries) first visited booths of the following Japanese companies at Social Innovation 2014: Nissan Motor; Sekisui House; Daiwa House Industry; Toppan Printing; NEC; SECOM. During the visit, diplomats could find out about the latest technologies and products offered by these companies to address issues for urban development, environmental protection, smart consumer products, etc. In the second part of the tour, diplomats had a chance to meet and connect with Yokohama based institutions and SMEs, which boast environmentally friendly technologies at a smaller scale. The programme helped diplomats stationed in Japan to benefit from the knowledge of Japanese technologies which can be applicable to developing and emerging nations to help plan smart urban development and environment management in their countries.