[Interview with Takashi Sonoda, CEO of Uhuru Corporation] Over 80 smart city projects involved. Aiming to solve regional issues through DX

Initiatives to solve regional issues such as population decline through technology, known as “smart cities,” are spreading. Among these, Uhuru Corporation has gained attention for handling numerous domestic smart city projects.

The company has supported DX for businesses and local governments, mainly through cloud and IoT. This time, we asked Takashi Sonoda, who founded the company and serves as Representative Director and CEO, about his passion for the business and future outlook.

The company name embodies the desire to “realize freedom and expand globally”

──Did you originally have the desire to start a business?

I’ve wanted to start a business since I was young. However, since I felt I needed professional experience before starting a business, I spent the 10 years after graduating from university gaining experience that could be useful for entrepreneurship in various places.

──You have a diverse background with Dentsu, investment banking, and Livedoor.

When I graduated from university and looked for a job, I thought meeting various people was important, so seeking connections with many people, I joined Dentsu.

I stayed at Dentsu for about 5 years, then seeking more knowledge and experience, I went to the University of Southern California in the US and obtained an MBA. This was because I wanted to gain global business experience while young.

After that, wanting to acquire ways of thinking about financial accounting and financial markets for future company management, I joined an investment bank. There, leveraging my study abroad experience, I played an important role connecting Japanese operating companies with US institutional investors.

Around that time, I had the opportunity to meet Takafumi Horie, then president of Livedoor. Seeing Horie, who is my age, active as an entrepreneur was very inspiring. Through that connection, I joined Livedoor.

There I first touched the Internet business and became convinced that by connecting the Internet and the real world, new business frontiers would open up.

I thought that by combining the experience I had cultivated and the learning gained at Livedoor, I could create a company useful to society, and so I founded Uhuru.

──Could you tell us about the origin of the name “Uhuru” and its meaning?

“Uhuru” means “freedom” in Swahili. At founding, my co-founder and I chose “freedom” as the company name based on the idea that “freedom is what we must first realize to do business.”

Swahili is a language used in Kenya, Tanzania, and other countries. We embedded the desire to expand our business to faraway savannas from Japan and develop globally. However, in reality, we’re often mistaken for “Wolf,” so we want to raise our recognition further.

Free thinking requires diversity. But just being different doesn’t leverage diversity

──Could you tell us about your business?

Through technologies such as cloud, IoT, and blockchain, we utilize data of companies and local governments to eliminate the unreasonable and wasteful in the world. The world we aim for is to create a “SMOOTH WORLD” where people, things, and matters move smoothly without stress.

The foundation of our business is the cloud. In particular, Salesforce implementation support has been a core business since our founding. On top of that, we combine technologies like IoT and blockchain, handling domestic and international smart city projects, as well as carbon neutrality areas.

In a word, to use a worn-out expression, we’re a “DX company.” However, we always want to express ourselves in more unique ways.

──What sets you apart from other companies?

Strong connection with the real world. This means both the “real” of cooperation with regional communities and the “real” of physical spaces and devices. I think this is a clear difference from strategy consulting firms.

Local government smart city projects are in progress in various locations. We work in cooperation with local governments and companies to solve various regional issues. Some employees have set up offices on-site and moved there. Also, at the Fukui base, there’s a team building real devices. Being able to handle everything from cloud to edge is Uhuru’s characteristic.

──What do you value as a company?

Our management philosophy is “Creating a sustainable society through technology and free thinking.”

To combine free thinking with technology, people with diverse backgrounds are necessary. I believe new ideas and major results emerge from diversity.

At Uhuru, in addition to differences in age, gender, and nationality, we also value diversity of thinking and skill sets.

However, if you just end with “I’m different from you,” diversity can’t be leveraged. Precisely because we’re different, the idea of transforming beyond each other’s frames is important. We value the attitude of “enjoying differences” and “going beyond frames,” and have set this as a shared value standard in-house.

To aim for solving regional issues, project execution skills and the ability to involve others are necessary

──How many employees do you have now?

About 220 employees. In addition, there are about 100 partners who regularly work with us on a contract basis. Honestly, we don’t think much about the distinction between employees and contractors—everyone works as one. About 70% are engineers, and the rest are consultants, sales, back office, etc.

──Looking at your office, women also seem to be working very enjoyably.

As for gender ratio, with many engineers, it’s about 7 men to 3 women. Of course, many women are active, and currently our sales manager is also a woman.

──Is remote work the main work style?

It depends on the job, but full remote OK is the case in most situations. Domestically, employees live in nearly 30 prefectures, and some work overseas. We’ve adopted a flextime system, allowing flexible choices not only in work location but also in work hours.

──Do you have an image of “the kind of people you want to work with”?

Understanding the philosophy I mentioned earlier is a prerequisite, but on top of that, what we’re seeking now are people who can do project management—solving complex issues while running alongside customers.

Thanks to that, business opportunities have been increasing significantly. However, we need to not just see them as opportunities but properly complete them. So we’re looking for those who can organize challenges and time axes together with customers and translate them into specific execution plans—in other words, consultants or project managers.

──Then is consultant experience necessary?

Not necessarily. People with skills to organize challenges, propose, and advance projects also exist at operating companies, as well as those running their own businesses.

For us, another important element is “can you form and execute teams?” There are many people who can think alone. However, since we always move team-based, we value those who can promote collaborative efforts—in recent terms, “can you prompt effectively?”

──Someone who can involve those around them.

Exactly. As with local governments, there are still many companies just starting to work on DX.

In traditional IT projects, you often interact only with specialized departments like IT. But our projects involve various stakeholders including business departments. A stance of thinking at the same level and solving together, not from a top-down perspective, is necessary.

──What’s the particular appeal of working at your company?

First, the wide range of technologies we handle. Cloud is the main focus, but we also handle IoT and hardware. The diversity of technologies is interesting.

Having many fields where we can execute is also a strength. In regional smart city projects, we already have relationships with over 40 local governments domestically.

Many regions in Japan have various challenges including labor shortages. How do we DX-transform and solve local government systems for tourism, disaster prevention, etc.? I consider this a major mission for Japan as a whole. Recently, elements like carbon neutrality have been added, expanding the scope further.

Information and connections gather around those who have them. That’s why community activities are important

──Leading diverse members must be challenging. What kind of communication do you value?

There are several things we value in communication. First, I always try to be aware of and share the desire I mentioned earlier: “fuse the Internet and real world to make society better.” We always reflect on “What are we ultimately aiming for?”

The second is “fusion of real and remote.” Remote work is the main focus for us, but to get to know each other well and become close, daily casual communication and meeting in person are also important. For example, we consciously have real contact points like mid-career hire reunions and milestone gatherings.

Through smart city projects, we have connections with various regions. Using those regions as hubs, we also hold hackathons and ideathons to create contact points.

In our previous office, we used half the space as community space and held events every day. Doing it every day was costly and honestly difficult to run, but the effort brought many results. Many people came to know Uhuru through events, and there are even cases where people who spoke at events later joined the company.

──People positive about community activities seem to fit your company.

Yes. I myself am not limited to Japan—I’m a member of a Saudi Arabian investment conference and engage in community activities in various places.

What we do has many open innovation elements. We’re currently a company of about 200 people, but we’re sometimes asked to do more than what companies with tens of thousands of employees do. In such cases, we need to go beyond the frame of ourselves or our company and involve regional people and society as a whole.

Of course, we must comply with confidentiality obligations, but information doesn’t come in unless you transmit it.
Data, information, and connections create gravitational pull for those who have them, and even more data, information, and connections gather.
What gives meaning to this is, I believe, person-to-person connections.

──We heard you erected a torii gate at a shrine on your office building’s premises. Is this also part of regional community activities?

That’s right. We moved our headquarters to Kamiyacho, Tokyo, 12 years ago, and since then we’ve been visiting Fukishiro Inari Shrine right nearby. A few years ago, when the shrine was rebuilt with the area’s redevelopment, we erected and dedicated a torii gate. Personally, I visit the shrine every day without fail.

The reason I visit daily is simple—I visit with gratitude for being able to work every day. The visit is important time for me.

During the visit, I don’t touch my smartphone—it’s time for quiet reflection. Close to meditation. Thanks to the shrine, I have time to lay down my shoulder burden every day. Now that the company has grown, I dedicated the torii gate with the desire to repay such a shrine.

Beyond the shrine, I feel strongly that this Kamiyacho town raised us, and I’m actually a member of the Kamiyacho neighborhood association. We’re the only IT company so far, but we want to spread activities more. The neighborhood association is also a regional community.

I don’t think humans can live joyfully completely separated from physical places. We value such geographic ties—where you live, where the office is located.

──We can feel that you value “connections.”

Yes. Whether human or geographic, I’ve valued “connections” very much throughout my life. I hope to have good connections with everyone reading this interview.

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[Interview Postscript]

Uhuru Corporation Company Information

Uhuru Corporation Job Opening Information