The 6th BSA Conference
Working Towards Digital Government Transformation: Learnings from Central and Local Government Efforts to Balance IT Utilization and Security

Speaker Bios

Victoria A. Espinel
President and CEO, BSA | The Software Alliance

 
Victoria Espinel is a respected authority on the intersection of technology innovation, global markets and public policy. She leads strategic efforts that help shape the technology landscape in 60 countries through work in BSA’s 10 global offices. Espinel also serves as the President of Software.org: the BSA Foundation. Software.org is an independent and nonpartisan international research organization created to help policymakers and the broader public better understand the impact that software has on our lives, our economy, and our society. Espinel served for a decade in the White House, for both Republican and Democratic Administrations as President Obama’s advisor on intellectual property and, before that, as the first ever chief US trade negotiator for intellectual property and innovation at USTR. She also chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Digital Economy and Society. She was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN), the principal advisory group for the US government on international trade.

Fumiaki Kobayashi
Parliamentary Vice-Minister, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC),Parliamentary Secretary of Cabinet Office

 
Originally from Fukuyama city in Hiroshima prefecture, Kobayashi is in the House of Representatives (elected three times) for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). After graduating from Faculty of Science and Technology of Sophia University in Japan, he entered NTT Docomo Inc. In 2012, he won his first seat at House of Representatives when he ran for the election of the House through LDP’s open call for candidates. Since then, he has undertaken positions at LDP as the Director of Youth Division, Vice Chair of Headquarter for Promoting Administrative Reform, and Deputy Secretary-General of Special Mission Committee on the Institutional Design for the 100-Year Life. He currently serves as the Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as well as Parliamentary Secretary of Cabinet Office and is focused on regulatory reform of radio, broadcast, and telecommunication, as well as development of policies for Social Security and Tax Number System (‘My Number’ system). He works to create a society that enables more fairness and efficiency through social implementation of technology, while continuing to make policy recommendation on marine policies, particularly on those that enable sustainable development of fisheries industry.

Kenji Hiramoto
Chief Strategist: National Strategy office of IT, Cabinet Secretariat, Executive advisor to CIO: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

 
Hiramoto works on administrative service reform using digital technology. He has implemented a project that encompasses investigation, verification, and service deployment designed to tackle issues that could not be resolved under the existing administrative framework. In addition to organizing procurement informaton of centrall/local governments and operating a general information website on support systems, he has comprehensively promoted administrative service reform through measures such as IT infrastructure development (characters, vocabulary, code, etc.) and drastic website reviews. Hiramoto is involved in reviewing the introduction of advanced technologies such as censors and AI, and also cooperates with engineers on events such as Hackathon. He also attends various international conferences and is involved in human resources development at Tokyo University.

Yoshiyuki Kuwahara
Chief of Information Strategy, Hiroshima Prefectural Government

 
Kuwahara developed his successful career as an engineer at DEC and EDS, and later came to be involved in business consulting at KPMG and Arthur Andersen, experiencing key positions at the firms. Also, he established his own company Interfusion Consulting, Inc. in January 2007, serving as a Representative Director and contributing to the planning of information strategy and policies for central and local governments. A fatal meeting came in January 2011, when he met the Governor of Hiroshima, Hidehiko Yuzaki, through a mutual acquaintance and was offered to work together in supporting further development of Hiroshima prefectural government. Accepting the offer in April 2011, he took on part-time responsibility as CIO of Hiroshima prefectural government, and after serving the position for 5 years, resigned from all job duties in Tokyo, taking the role of Chief of Information Strategy as full-time specified term official on June 1st, 2016, fully devoting himself to become a Hiroshima prefecture native. He has contributed to the research and development of information technology for over 35 years, of which for 15 years, he was engaged in the operation of public sectors. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Osaka Electro-Communications University and also completed overseas study program at The University of British Columbia, Canada.

Hiroyuki Kawaguchi
Executive Planning Officer of Information Strategy, Minato-city, Tokyo
Former Planning Officer of Sage Prefectural Government

 
Kawaguchi holds PhD of Engineering and Master of Technology Management (Professional Degree). He completed the graduate course of Management of Technology at Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) as well as pursuing Doctoral Course of Graduate School at SIT. In 1996, he registered as administrative scrivener and joined as a Working Group member of Advanced Information Communication Society Strategy Headquarters of Japan Federation of Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialists Associations in 2004. After teaching part time at Junior College of Aizu and full time at Tokyo Metropolitan Vocational Development Center, he served as Executive Advisor to CIO of Kochi Prefectural Government from 2009 to 2012. He became the Assistant Professor of Cyber University in 2012, serving until 2015. From 2013 to 2015, he was appointed as Executive Advisor to CIO at Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), as well as Executive Planning Officer of Information Strategy of Minato-city. He also served as Planning Officer of Saga Prefectural Government from 2015 to 2018, advising to CIO for the ward and municipalities in the prefecture.

Mihoko Nishijima
Sr. Manager Government Relations and Public Policy, Adobe Systems

 
Nishijima joined Adobe in 2013 and is responsible for public policy mainly in the fields of e-government, cyber security, education policy. Prior to Adobe, she worked at Microsoft over 10 years engaging education policy including human resource development for computer science and ICT use in Education. She promoted these initiatives in collaboration with industry, government and academia. Prior to Microsoft, she was a program specialist at ACCU (Asia / Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO) and was responsible for preservation and promotion programs for intangible cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific region and promoted international understanding education in collaboration with Asian/Pacific countries.