A Place to Call Home Again:
Vitality Returns to Fukushima
Innovation and pioneering residents bring hope to Fukushima.
Eleven years after calamity forced her to abandon her birthplace, NEMOTO Liana is back home again.
NEMOTO was a student in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture when, on March 11, 2011, the combined earthquake and tsunami disasters, and the nuclear accident interrupted her life. Odaka ward was immediately put under a strict evacuation order which lasted until 2016. NEMOTO relocated to Tokyo, where she came of age. But instead of remaining to pursue her career, she has returned home to Minamisoma, drawn by the chance to make a difference and live a more flexible lifestyle.
In Tokyo, everything and everyone is available, but that’s not always the case here. This is a place where we can take on challenges and try to solve problems ourselves. That’s what makes it so attractive.
NEMOTO Liana, resident, Minamisoma
She applied the knowledge about solving problems creatively learned in Tokyo to a business incubator founded by WADA Tomoyuki, another local. The Odaka Worker’s Base mission is to create business opportunities to support returning residents.
A New Lease of Life
In 2014, WADA and his team established Odaka Worker’s Base as a coworking space where people returning from the city could continue to work remotely. As more people joined, it was necessary to provide dining options, so they recruited local women to launch a cafe. When there was nowhere to buy groceries, they opened a supermarket.
“If there is a problem to be solved, we will solve it by creating a business around that very issue. Business is not only a way to scale up and make money but a way to solve problems,” says WADA. “Rather than making an impact or changing society, we want to make our ideal lifestyle in this town that once had nothing left.”
To realize that great potential, the goal is to do better than returning things to how they were—by redesigning communities that truly serve residents.
That “build back better” model, now embraced by post-pandemic societies, was actually born seven years ago in Japan for the U.N. Sendai Framework for global disaster protection.
Under this model, Fukushima presents a new frontier; a rare chance for dreamers and independent spirits to start fresh and rebuild something better than it was before.
“Since this town was evacuated and had to start again from scratch, it makes it possible to think out of the box about creating the future we want. This is the region’s great potential.” explains WADA.
Fukushima presents an opportunity to create a new society here, which could be a model community where people can live comfortably and sustainably.
WADA Tomoyuki, CEO, Odaka Worker’s Base
A Better Fukushima
Rebuilding a better Fukushima has meant targeting the right mix of human resources and technological innovation necessary for a robust and resilient future.
At the Robot Test Field in Minamisoma City, near Odaka, unmanned aircraft and autonomous rescue vehicles are under development to shock-proof the region against future, climate-change-driven calamity. Dozens of universities and research institutes are field-testing robots on land, sea, and air at what is now one of the Japan’s largest airspaces for unmanned aerial vehicles.
I’d like to make Fukushima a hub for innovation that creates revolutionary robotic technologies. We are working on ways to apply advancements in robotics to enable the future society we want to build.
Dr. SUZUKI Shinji, Test Field Director, Fukushima Robot Test Field
A short train ride south in Namie Town, Japan’s largest green hydrogen plant opened in 2021 to supply enough energy to power about 4,500 households. When tennis champion OSAKA Naomi completed the Olympic journey to light the torch last July, it was powered by zero-emission energy created at the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field.
Technology, innovation, and human potential are uplifting regional revitalization and bringing a much sought-after upgrade to Fukushima’s future. The combined effect of courage and creativity has created a fresh start on a future story that its people will be able to tell.
