Information

Meiden staffer’s start-up selected for METI ‘secondment’ entrepreneurship program

2021-11-12

Meidensha Corporation (Meiden) is pleased to announce that a start-up established by a member of its staff has been adopted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s fiscal 2021 program to encourage entrepreneurship among seconded salaried workers.

Masahiko Okiyama, chief executive officer of Resilience Lab Co., Ltd., established the business continuity planning (BCP) service start-up in August 2021 while continuing his Meiden job. In 2018, Meiden started a program to encourage all employees to submit business ideas in new domains for the company so that it can enter new business areas and create more value for people.

Resilience Lab plans to cater to companies, organizations and municipal governments by providing services such as designing business continuity plans in emergencies and creating a joint reserve of emergency supplies. The start-up aims to contribute to society by helping Japan become more resilient to disasters – one of the challenges facing the country – through its proposals, services and value creation that meet clients’ needs.

Resilience Lab Co., Ltd.


Date established: August 2, 2021
Founder: Representative director and CEO Masahiko Okiyama
Address: ThinkPark Tower, 2-1-1 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
Website: https://resilab-jpn.com
Contact: info@resilab-jpn.com
Business operations: 1. “Designing BCP Measures” and 2. “Joint Reserve Service: BCP Charge.” 


Going forward, Meiden will hone ideas originated from its internal organizations and individual employees and link them to business so that it can expand into new domains outside of its conventional areas of operation. Also, the company is determined to create new businesses that contribute to a decarbonized and resilient society and achieve innovation through co-creation with partner companies. To that end, the company will strive to become an enterprise capable of spontaneously creating businesses and spurring them to grow by swiftly identifying social problems and needs.


*METI’s secondment entrepreneurship support program for employed persons (Subsidy to support the creation of new businesses by employees of large corporations)

The fiscal 2021 subsidy will cover part of the expenses associated with the business development and activities (development of a prototype, demonstration experiments, etc.) of employees who are developing new businesses while keeping their corporate positions.

*Secondment entrepreneurship requirements
To be eligible for the program, employees must belong to big corporations or other entities that tend not to offer an environment or a chance for them to take a shot at new businesses inside their company. They also must meet the following requirements as they try to create new businesses that are detached from their regular work:

1. The employee must establish a company with more than 80 percent of the capital coming from parties other than the company they are employed by.
2. The employee, who must work for a major corporation or entity, must work full-time as top executive of the start-up they established through secondment from the original firm.
3. The top executive of a new company who is on loan from the original company must have future plans or options available – either quitting the original company to become independent or returning to the original company.


Press contacts:

Corporate Communications & PR Promotion Division
e-mail: kouhou@mb.meidensha.co.jp