How Generation Next is Building Japan

It’s no secret that Japan is in a state of crisis. But judging by the manner in which the country’s young people have rallied in the aftermath of the March earthquake and tsunami, its future seems to be in safe hands. Using the Internet and social media, people in their 20s and 30s have been creating projects to help disaster victims on the fly.

After the earthquake struck northeast Japan early in the afternoon of March 11, Tokyo’s rail and bus systems ground to a halt, stranding thousands of people, including many commuters and schoolchildren. These people faced difficult choices: Wait until the transportation systems started working again, walk many miles home through jammed roads or find a roof to sleep on for the night.

A handful of young Japanese computer programmers came to their rescue and quickly created an interactive map of Tokyo on the Internet, using Twitter to broadcast its existence. Within hours, people had populated the map with information on temporary accommodations. By midnight, more than 180,000 people had accessed the site, and many stranded commuters were spared the ordeal of spending a night out in the cold.

As for Japan’s big corporations, several young CEOs were among the first to launch programs to help people in the affected areas. For example, Tamihito Takshima, the 36-year-old CEO of Win Roader, a family-owned recycling logistics business, launched the Heart-to-Heart project to deliver goods to tsunami victims. And Daisuke Kan, the 30-year-old executive director of the beverage company Cheerio, collaborated with local bus companies and other organizations to distribute approximately 150,000 free bottles of its energy drink, Lifeguard, to people in need.

Several social network companies also launched programs to raise money for earthquake relief. On March 12, the mobile social network Gree started a new service, Gree Volunteer, which allowed users to purchase an avatar with specialized Gree currency. Gree then donated the same amount in yen to quake victims. By March 20, more than 885,000 users had donated 174 million yen ($2.1 million).

Until now, the older generation has often dismissed Japan’s youngsters as weak and inward-looking – weak because they spend and drink less than their fathers; inward-looking because they prefer to live in Japan. Yet, these youth have demonstrated that they’re capable of coping with serious crises and building a new future for Japan.

(Nobuo Sato is the executive director and Mayuka Yamazaki is a senior research associate at the Harvard Business School’s Japan Research Center in Tokyo.)

© 2011 Harvard Business Publishing