Eyes on the World and the Global Environment: The Road to Business

From graduate school entrance to the Vietnam period

The most unusual aspect of Kojima's background is probably the fact that he dropped out of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Energy Science to start a business.

“I have wanted to tackle environmental issues ever since I was in a elementary school, but I had only been thinking about it in a research capacity. In my fourth year of university, I met a number of entrepreneurs in a variety of fields, and first realized how interesting business could be. I really wanted to deal with the environment, so from that came the thought of taking it into the world of business.”

“I chose this research course for its reputation, its budgets, the freedom granted by its research laboratories, the fact that it attracts talented people, and the fact that I could just about make it in. For the most part I was on a leave of absence, and I dropped out after two and a half years—but I had entered specifically with the intention of starting a business, and it was never my plan to graduate.”

Kojima took the opportunity during his leave of absence to fly to Vietnam. His reasons were a desire to experience, at an early stage, the shift in the environmental business markets of an emerging economy; and the fact that he had read a book stating that he would need to learn how to sell before becoming president of a company.

His job was business development in advertising. He would look in the local Yellow Pages and make telephone appointments to visit the businesses' English-speaking contacts, and then he would talk business with them. His determination to repeat this as many times as necessary—even changing country if it came down to it—brought him success, and he came into prominence as a top salesman in the second month.

Kojima says that the other important thing that he learned, apart from his skills as a salesman, was the importance of seeing things from a local perspective.

“From a Japanese perspective, we wonder why they keep cutting trees down in Vietnam when the air quality is poor. But once you've lived there, the thought is an obvious one. They want to lead richer lives, sleep in rooms with air conditioning. Unless you step into the shoes of their actual lifestyle and accommodate their wishes intelligently when designing the system, the environmental issues will never be resolved.”

After Returning to Japan: Failure to Start First Business

With sales experience under his belt from his short stay in Vietnam, Kojima returned to Japan and began preparing to start up his own business.

He began living together with a friend, and the days dragged on, as he thought of ideas and then slowly researched them. Looking back on that period, Kojima cited reasons for his failure: the fact that he and his partner allowed each other to relax too much, believing that things would work out; and the fact that he had not put his experience in Vietnam to good use when doing work, avoiding laborious processes like physical labor where possible. He did not have the mature mindset required to start a business.

Two-and-a-half-month journey around the world, and the prototype for PIRIKA is born

In the fall of 2010, with only a year left of his permitted leave, Kojima set out on a two-and-a-half-month journey around the world. When his leave ended, he would have to find work, to set his parents at ease. It was a journey permeated by a sense of pressure. He needed to have a clear idea of what he wanted to do before the time came.

“I wanted to find out, by seeing it first-hand, whether I was addressing a real problem by focusing on environmental issues. My perception of 'the environment' had mainly come through TV and books; I hadn't actually seen it all myself. I wanted to go there personally and see it with my own eyes—if it wasn't a real problem, then it would be a waste to devote much of an important time in my life to it, so I wanted to ascertain it for myself. For my journey around the world, I again chose emerging economies and places of natural beauty wherever possible.”

Kojima describes how he scoped out various kinds of issues, taking memos and planning new ideas. Each time he would take a memo, the idea would inspire great fervor in him, but after two or three days, it would be thrown out. Lists written, then erased; he says he went through at least a hundred. But my own perspective, looking back on all this, is that there are several places on Kojima's blog, authored during his journey, that give a strong impression that his attention had already turned towards trash.

In Rio de Janeiro, there is a severely high rate of littering. However, there are no empty cans lying around anywhere. Empty cans can be turned into money, so people pick them up of their own accord. Make a business or system where money is involved, and the environment fixes itself. That was the conclusion I came to.
http://ameblo.jp/kojimafujio/entry-10687854235.html#main (October 21, 2010)

That day, I was discussing environmental business in India over breakfast with the head of the household, and the topic of waste reclamation came up as a suggestion. It is true that the city of Delhi is overflowing with trash, and unlike a lot of other areas of environmental business, waste reclamation doesn't require much capital. (December 2, 2010)
http://ameblo.jp/kojimafujio/entry-10730876825.html#main

I had thought Singaporeans were all fluent in English, but a lot of them speak broken English; and I had imagined the city to be completely devoid of trash, but there's a surprising amount of it lying around. (December 4, 2010)
http://ameblo.jp/kojimafujio/entry-10732223316.html#main

In the end, even though he had returned to Japan, Kojima still hadn't found anything he felt he could really put his soul into.

The pressure continued to build on Kojima, not helped by problems that emerged in his private life, as if to drive him into a corner. He recalls lying on a mat in the research laboratory, and thinking that he had no future. “What am I doing? I'm unemployed and a NEET; I've come back from a trip around the world and I've found nothing.”

Out of options, Kojima picked the idea that seemed best to him at the time, and as he began typing it into PowerPoint, he found it to be surprisingly interesting. That idea, which was the first with a connection to what later became PIRIKA, was at that time called the “Global Environmental Improvement Map”. He showed it to his friends in IT, received positive reactions, and was taught how to program. This was in December, 2010.

Development continued, and the focus on trash came about in mid-February, 2011. He says it was the result of simplification, and an extremely difficult decision to make. “It's easy to think about big things like global environmental improvement, but I had to face reality. Atmospheric conditions change daily, and not many people live next to rivers. Trash was the only aspect that could feasibly remain.”

The Now and Future of PIRIKA

At the time of writing, usage of PIRIKA is spread over 27 countries, and over 1000 pieces of trash have been picked up. Its reputation is unquestionably growing; it reached the semifinals of the 3rd SF New Tech Japan Night, received top prize at the Open Network Lab Demo Day, and is in co-operation with the environmental NGO “The Watershed Project”, based in UC Berkeley. I conducted an interview on the concept and future of PIRIKA.

―What is the most important point about the service?
“The key is that people are influenced by seeing the actions of other people. By which I mean, it's quicker just to pick up the trash (rather than using PIRIKA). The whole reason for adding the effort of photographing and sharing trash is that whoever sees it may be influenced to pick up trash themselves, or influenced not to litter. That's the important part.”

―What reasons do you think users will have for using PIRIKA?
“I think sensing its potential could motivate them to use it. We don't have many users yet, so it may be that only somewhat strange people are using it at the moment.”

At the time of this interview (mid-October), the user figures stand at just over 800 downloads, and 550 registered users. Users who have picked up trash at least once: 150; users using the app regularly: 30. Still on the low side.

His goal is apparently “to turn it into a platform responsible for the collection of 100 million pieces of trash a year within the next five years”. Incidentally, there are statistics stating that 4.5 trillion cigarette packets are thrown away worldwide every year.

―Are you aiming to make it an app for social good?
Kojima has some doubts about putting the element of social good at the forefront. “The reason I thought about coupons as a business model (see below) is that it's easier to recommend to friends that way. You don't have to act snobbish if you say you're doing it for the coupons. I want people to use it 'because it's fun'. They won't use it if the only motivator is 'doing good'. Right now, I'm frantically searching for the element that can make it enjoyable for the greatest number of people.”

―How can you get people to pick up all the world's trash?
Kojima says that is one reason he wants to take it abroad, but he explained to me that one important point about doing it in Japan for now is that “Japan doesn't have that much trash, so it's easier to pick it up”. In other words,
“If there was garbage all around in front of you, you wouldn't pick it up, but if there was just one piece, you would. It's important during the beginning stages that there's a certain level of tidiness. It may be too early yet to take on Vietnam or India levels of trash. If we were to add group or event functionality, maybe that would be the right time to grapple with that.”

―What are your ideas for business plans?
The business plans that Kojima has listed for me so far are the following:
・Location-based advertising
・Coupons for cleaning around shops
・Business brand improvement and CSR activities
“For example, if you search 'McDonalds trash', you get a lot of blogs from people who are annoyed about McDonalds trash they've found discarded in front of their house. This is damaging to the brand. McDonalds have links within their in-house apps, which boast 4 million downloads, to download other promotional apps. Perhaps it would be possible to offer coupons or bonuses to people who use PIRIKA to pick up McD trash. It would make good use of their platform, be an opportunity to carry out an interesting type of promotion that hasn't been seen before, and they would actually be able to show the trash being collected up.”

About the organization/team

This is where Ayaki, in charge of development, enters the picture. Ayaki, who majored in computer science as an undergraduate and won first place in a worldwide programming contest, is currently on temporary leave from graduate school at Osaka University, and has taken on development of PIRIKA.

―Reasons for working with Kojima
“This applies to my research work as well, but on a fundamental level I just enjoy solving difficult problems. It's more fun when there's a challenge. Games that enjoy a brief burst of popularity and are never heard of again, things that just connect to Twitter or Facebook—those can be made easily, and that's not what I want to do. I have no desire to become an engineer for an existing internet business; if I'm working with technology, I want to develop it from scratch. I wanted to do something that is fundamentally difficult, something with no clear roadmap, something no one has done before.”

“I, personally, don't pick up trash. Even now, I deliberately don't pick it up. We have to make something such that I do pick it up. This is our shared problem: Can we make people pick up trash with the power of IT? If we can solve this, it will be amazing.”

“Technology has a tendency to have winners and losers, but there's nothing like that with this service. Everyone can be happy. I like how easy to understand that is, and the fact that it's an incredible challenge. Those are my reasons. I had no interest in the environmental issues. I think Kojima is an interesting person.”

In conclusion

Here is written an old story that has never changed—of young people journeying to see the world, and experiencing the pressure particular to those years of life.

Kojima describes himself neither as a social entrepreneur nor as an IT venture manager, but as an environmental entrepreneur. He is honest and knows his weaknesses, but he has a tough side, and acts decisively. He is also blessed with a business partner who can look at all this with an analytical mind. Those are the reasons I was drawn to Kojima and his team.

If I were to concisely express what gives PIRIKA its charm, I would say: it demonstrates the potential that people can realize through sharing. I also like the fact that it is different from mere “recommendations” or “commerce”.

From my perspective as a photographer, the act of picking up trash means that something is taken away, erased and not left; but PIRIKA leaves traces of itself via photos. It reminds me strongly of the core of photography, which is its ability to drive a wedge into time and space and leave a record that “this once was there (restated: isn't there anymore)”—even if the subject of that photograph was not itself beautiful.

Ever since learning of PIRIKA, finding trash has become a fun experience for me. But a lot of the time, there isn't any lying around; or if there is, I notice it's not often that it fits both conditions of being possible to pick up and having a trash can nearby. Pick it up, photo it, share it, throw it in a bin; can they get people all around the world to use this? I'm looking forward to finding out how their work develops.

Original Article in Japanese（日本語版）:「世界で年間１億個のゴミが拾われるプラットフォームに」PIRIKA・小嶌不二夫【本田】