Konica Minolta Opens Innovation Garden OSAKA Front, a Cooperation and Development Center for Imaging AI and IoT
Offering New Value for the Evolution of Human Society by Meeting the Visualization Needs of Customers

Tokyo (September 30, 2019) - Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) has opened the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front to develop the imaging AI and imaging IoT* businesses and promote open innovation with customers and partner companies on the 32nd floor of Grand Front Osaka located in the center of Osaka, in front of Umeda Station and Osaka Station. The facility will engage in full-scale development of imaging IoT in the Kansai region by leveraging imaging AI technology and high-speed processing technology, which are the strengths of the company, as part of the growth strategy.

In 2020, Konica Minolta will construct the Innovation Garden OSAKA Center at the R&D center near Japan Railway (JR) Takatsuki Station (Takatsuki Site). Core human resources in imaging AI and imaging IoT will be assigned to these centers, and will be joined by new employees and mid-career recruits. Innovation Garden OSAKA, which is the collective name for the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front and the Innovation Garden OSAKA Center, will create new value by using the strength of diverse human resources and will contribute to the evolution of human society by meeting the various visualization needs of global customers.

Konica Minolta meets such needs by using technology for visualizing the invisible, based on the photo film and camera businesses on which the company was founded, to offer solutions and contribute to society. Konica Minolta’s human resources in imaging AI and imaging IoT will work mainly at Innovation Garden OSAKA and cooperate with local stakeholders to create new value.

Konica Minolta’s technologies for visualizing the invisible, which utilize imaging AI and IoT, and their applications are as follows.

• Care Support Solution that visualizes the behavior patterns of residents at care facilities
• Gas Monitoring Solution that visualizes invisible gases
• Remote sensing that visualizes the growth of plants on vast farms (cooperation between Yanmar and Konica Minolta)
• Go Insight that visualizes the behavior patterns of consumers at stores
• Visualization technology for personalized medicine such as visualization of genes, proteins, cells, and internal organs

Innovation Garden OSAKA Front

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is an office for achieving an attractive workplace that facilitates the creation of ideas based on the concept of “Agile development × Open innovation (open collaboration) × Activity-based working (ABW) = Creation of innovative ideas.”

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is adjacent to Umeda Station which is highly accessible. It promotes industry-academia cooperation and open innovation with local companies and universities. The office is divided into different zones so that employees can choose from diverse workstyles. The interaction area helps generate innovative ideas based on freewheeling thinking in cooperation with local companies and universities. The concentration area enables Konica Minolta’s human resources in charge of imaging IoT and imaging AI who are permanently stationed at the office to reflect ideas invented in the interaction area immediately in the development process. The Innovation Garden OSAKA Front is an agile business development center that provides an attractive workplace.

Location: 32nd Floor, South Building Tower A, Grand Front Osaka
4-20 Ofuka-cho, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0011, Japan

Imaging AI, imaging IoT*: technologies to analyze image data and various types of sensor information by utilizing AI technology including deep learning to support decision-making and judgment at various sites

Innovation Garden OSAKA Center

The Innovation Garden OSAKA Center will be constructed at the Takatsuki Site (Takatsuki City, Osaka Prefecture) near JR Takatsuki Station in FY2020 to strengthen the capability to develop imaging AI and imaging IoT. It will serve as the hub together with the Innovation Garden OSAKA Front that has been opened in Umeda.

The development of imaging IoT that utilizes imaging AI and high-speed processing technology, which are Konica Minolta’s strengths, will drive the growth of the company’s global IoT business and data business. Konica Minolta will promote the full-scale development of these technologies to strengthen its development capabilities.