The industry-academia partnership will start out with collaborations in the healthcare, robotics and human resources spaces, including a sports science tie-up with a Rakuten-owned baseball team and plans for software development hackathons.
The Japan-based Tohoku University has formed a collaboration pact with e-commerce firm Rakuten that will initially target innovations in healthcare, robotics and human resources, Telecompaper reported yesterday.
The agreement will result in the creation of a research hub called Rakuten Innovation Laboratory Tohoku to coordinate efforts between its partners. Its remit for research could be broadened out into additional sectors after a year.
Tohoku will work alongside Rakuten’s life science business promotion department and its corporate venturing unit,…
