Connect us, and build a new community
What is Keihanna Avatar Challenge?
Keihanna Science City, which straddles Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara, is one of Japan’s two great academic cities, along with Tsukuba Science City to the east. The Avatar Challenge is an initiative that unites this region by remote-controlled robots (avatars), which is home to over 150 research facilities, university facilities, cultural facilities, and more.
Mission
Let’s Hold the ‘Danjiri’ Festival with Avatars: Running in Reality, Crossing Districts Virtually!
Vision
By collaborating to organize the festival, we aim to raise awareness among local residents (starting from Kansai, Japan, and eventually expanding globally).
We will involve people living in today’s society, where connections with others are often weak, in a whirlwind of ‘cooperation, participation, and spectating.
Value
- Conduct various competitions using multiple avatars.
- Gather ideas, including from local university students, to diversify the competition content and robot specifications.
- Establish a system that allows anyone to participate in the avatar sports festival as a competitor.
- Aim to create a system where spectators can watch their favorite competitions (live and on-demand).
Similar to Kishiwada City’s Danjiri Festival, local residents in each district will prepare the unique competition throughout the district (or the stage), and hold a cyber-physical festival in which avatars will clear all the 13 stages and reach the finish line like in Super Mario Bros.
As with the Danjiri Festival, all residents in each district can take part in the festival as producers, directors and actors, etc.
We are paying close attention to safety to prevent accidents, and are working diligently to develop technology so that you can watch the games on your own device without having to go to the venue.
Anyone can participate from anywhere!
Avatars in action in futuristic cities. We want them to be more active in the real world, not just in movies and anime. At first, the performance of the avatar may not be high, but we are constantly striving to improve the safety, operability, and performance of our avatars. We want to enjoy their evolution.
The avatars used in the Keihanna Avatar Challenge can be remotely controlled to move long distances at speeds of up to 6km per hour. The competition can be watched from various viewpoints, including those of each avatar and by spectators, and we aim to create a festival-like event that anyone can enjoy.
Do you think only engineers can use avatars? Anyone can participate, regardless of occupation or age.
The Keihanna region is a cutting-edge city in science and technology, and at the same time, it is also a large city with over 10,000 employees and 100,000 residents.
We want not only current residents of Keihanna, but also former residents to know more about our passion for avatars.
We hope you will experience and become familiar with cutting-edge science and technology.
In modern times, people are becoming more convenient and at the same time becoming more isolated. When people no longer talk to people or go out, they lose their purpose in life.
Regardless of work or age, everyone from small children to the elderly can enjoy it freely and equally. This movement reconnects people, which is becoming increasingly weak.
The Keihanna Avatar Challenge is a new type of festival planned with an eye to the future. All researchers, engineers, and planners are looking forward to your participation.
Our aspirations
Social isolation of citizens is a challenge in developed countries
Japanese society is said to be a developed country with many challenges, with the need to respond to the declining birthrate and aging population.
Japan’s biggest problem is that compared to other countries, there are many people who are socially isolated and the happiness level of its citizens is low.
Even if they do not develop a mental disorder, many people must realize that there are many people who tend to stay at home or who do not even come to the cleaning activities of the neighborhood association.
There are many people who only engage in social activities through SNS, and this can be described as group-based social withdrawal, and is a major cause of social division.
We hope that communication using remote-controlled robots (hereinafter referred to as avatars) can solve this situation, as there are fewer hurdles to dialogue even for people who are not good at face-to-face meetings.
Fostering a sense of unity among widely dispersed cities
Kansai Science and Culture City, where we live, is a wide-area cooperative city spread across 13 districts, and there is almost no sense of unity as a city.
If a mechanism to foster a sense of unity is perfected, a society in which citizens of Kansai, Japan, and the world can feel a sense of unity will no longer be a dream.
Festivals are creative and inclusive activities that recognize the diversity of citizens.
The Keihanna Avatar Challenge originated from a plan to hold something similar to the Danjiri Festival, where avatars can participate inclusively (without discrimination or discrimination).
Could we do something like an F1 race with avatars driven by diverse participants, regardless of age, gender, able-bodied or disabled, and regardless of whether they are in the stadium or not?
If you can prepare multiple avatars (13 avatars per team), you should be able to run in a relay race format with different competitions, virtually jump across districts, and compete while covering all of Science City.
Similar to the old game Super Mario Bros., each district or stage will set up a “checkpoint” where avatars will be challenged in competitions devised by that district.
The aim is for citizens to contribute to the festival as much as they like, doing what they like, when and where they like, depending on their skills, funds, preferences, and availability. Another big difference from elementary school sports days is that anyone can participate in the competition by their avatar on the stage from far away via the internet or 5G/Starlink.
Differences from similar events
There are many similar competitions such as RoboCup. However, since most are competitions for autonomous robots, the people who create the robots are just having fun, and the audience is just watching.
It would be even more fun if the audience could join in and participate in the competition. Avatar can do that.
If we can cooperate and hold a festival based on the special skills of the citizens, such as creating and operating avatars, designing and operating competitions, we can raise the awareness of the residents, increase communication between them, and reduce feelings of social isolation. Fewer people should have them.
If we are successful in this area, we will be able to bring people together in a circle of solidarity in competitions throughout Kansai, Japan, and the world.
Our expectations for future society
In particular, if you can freely control your avatar, you can eliminate double bookings and improve your skills through childcare and lifelong learning (recurrent education) while working.
It can also show how we should live in a future society that aims to solve the problem of the declining birthrate and realize a diverse society. I hope that the future will open up if all citizens have a high sense of autonomy and ethical values and utilize the tools of the new civilization called avatars.
Through play, you can experience how to live in such a future society. This is the goal of the Keihanna Avatar Challenge.
