Under the supervision of Tohoku University's COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" Center (JST's "Support Program for Creating Collaborative Spaces"),
an educational animated video on children's eye health has been developed to help children
realize the importance of their eyes.
July 31, 2023
ROHTO Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, President: Masafumi Sugimoto) is participating in the Tohoku University COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" Center, an empowerment society co-creation center centered around Tohoku University that supports human connections and self-realization, starting with "visibility," which has been selected as a full-scale co-creation field project under the Japan Science and Technology Agency's (JST) "Co-creation Space Formation Support Program (commonly known as COI-NEXT)."
With the global increase in the myopia population, there are concerns about the rising decline in children's eyesight in Japan. Under the supervision of Tohoku University's COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" center, we have developed an educational animated video about children's eye health, which will be used in elementary school homeroom classes in Tomiya City, Miyagi Prefecture. Moving forward, we will continue to collaborate with various organizations to realize the well-being of individuals and society, starting with "seeing."
About the Tohoku University COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" center in which our company is participating.
Our company, guided by our Group Comprehensive Management Vision 2030, "Connect for Well-being," is expanding its business beyond the traditional framework of a pharmaceutical company into areas such as food and Regenerative medicine, while engaging in various activities to address current social and regional challenges. As one such initiative, we are participating in the Tohoku University COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" center, aiming to solve social issues in the Tohoku region through "co-creation" and to create a system for the early detection of unnoticed diseases, which also has global implications. We will promote the creation of innovations that cannot be achieved through single-company or one-on-one collaborative research.
About the educational animation video we developed
This animated video uses personified characters representing each of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste) to help children understand the importance of sight, one of the five essential senses, and the need for early eye care, all while having fun and becoming interested in the subject. This content was supervised by the Tohoku University COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" center. This educational video will be used as an introductory video for the "Rohto Eye Care Teaching Materials."
Rohto Eye Care Teaching Materials
This program aims to help children recognize the importance of their eyes, develop essential eye care skills for using digital devices such as tablets, and encourage behavioral change. It has been offered free of charge since June 2021.
About JST's "Co-creation Platform Formation Support Program (COI-NEXT)"
The Co-creation Platform Formation Support Program is an industry-academia collaboration program in which universities and other institutions take the lead in formulating a vision for the future society (hub vision), promoting research and development toward its realization, and aiming to create an independent industry-academia-government co-creation hub that can sustainably produce results even after the project ends.
Support Program for Creating Collaborative Spaces | Japan Science and Technology Agency (jst.go.jp)
About the Empowerment Social Co-creation Hub (Tohoku University COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" Hub) that supports human connections and self-realization, starting with "visibility"
Tohoku University's COI-NEXT "Vision to Connect" center aims to solve social issues starting from "visibility," and is working on research and development projects aimed at "designing a society with zero information disparity," "establishing 'healthcare that heals the future'," and "transforming self-realization and communication."
Tohoku University COI-NEXT “Vision to Connect” base (tohoku.ac.jp