Fumiko Ichikawa is Co-Founder and Managing Director at Re:public, think and do tank. She has studied human-computer interaction, and she has been the practitioner of ethnographic research in Japan and around the world. After the financial crisis and great earthquake that took place in Northern Japan in 2011, Fumiko co-founded Re:public. The company extensively work with cities and regional governments, where conducting research together with people are the critical part of developing an ecosystem of people driving change, innovation, and quality of life.

In today’s episode we talk to Fumiko about how a natural disaster in Japan was her catalyst for a career transition from a researcher in the technology space to a facilitator of urban innovation with her own company Re-public; her involvement with the Fukuoka innovation studio; the type of relationships people build with cities, citizenship, identity and craftsmanship.

Mentioned in Podcast:

Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine, Don Norman

2011 earthquake in Japan

The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia, James Holston

The Craftsman, Richard Sennett

Fumiko’s work:

https://re-public.jp/

http://new-normal.life/ (Translation available)

Social media and other links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fumikoichikawa/

https://www.instagram.com/furbiko/

https://www.epicpeople.org/article_author/fumiko-ichikawa/