Join us in celebrating Keizai Silicon Valley’s 2020 Shinnenkai (New Year’s Reception) on Friday, January 24 at the Palo Alto Hills Golf and Country Club.
This year we are going to have two guests of honor. Mr. Kaname Hayashi, founder and CEO of GROOVE X, Inc., will receive the Keizai Silicon Valley Outstanding Innovation Award. Mr. Hayashi will also give a demonstration of the new companion robot, LOVOT.
We are also presenting Mr. Guy Kawasaki with the Keizai Silicon Valley Distinguished Achievement Award. Aside from giving the keynote speech, Mr. Kawasaki will participate in a fireside chat with Professor Richard Dasher.
We will also be performing our traditional Kagamiwari (sake barrel “breaking”) ceremony. The Consul General of Japan, Mr. Tomochika Uyama, is expected to lead this tradition.
Kaname Hayashi Founder and CEO of GROOVE X, Inc., which produces the LOVOT next generation family-type robot that touches people's hearts and inspires affection, winning "BEST ROBOT" of THE VERGE AWARDS at CES among other awards in 2019.
Innovating in venture financing, he raised funds of 1.4 billion yen for GROOVE X in 2016, the largest domestic seed round in Japan, using a technique of convertible equity for the first time in that country. He went on to successfully raise 4.35 billion yen series A in 2017, and 3 billion yen series B in 2019. Overall, the funding contributed to a rise in Japan venture finance.
In 2011 he was selected as the first generation of SoftBank Academia, which aims to identify and foster potential successors to lead the SoftBank Group. Catching the eye of SoftBank Founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, he joined the company's new "Pepper" project in 2012. He led the project team from 2012 to 2015, being responsible for developing and launching the first model to the market.
He started his career at Toyota Corporation in 1998, working as an aerodynamics engineer, contributing to development of the first LEXUS supercar "LFA" and Toyota's Formula One racing cars at Formula One team “Toyota Motorsport GmbH(TMG)” in Germany. He received his master’s degree from Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology. He was born in Aichi, Japan.
Guy Kawasaki is a marketing specialist, author, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Currently, he is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design tool. He is a brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz and an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley).
He was the chief evangelist originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984. He popularized the word evangelist in marketing the Macintosh as an "Apple evangelist" and the concepts of evangelism marketing and technology evangelism/platform evangelism in general.
In late 1990’s, Guy started an angel investor matchmaking service called Garage.com with two other founders. Version 2.0 of Garage.com was an investment bank for helping entrepreneurs raise money from venture capitalists. Today, version 3.0 of Garage.com is called Garage Technology Ventures; it is a venture capital firm and makes direct investments in early-stage technology companies.
Thoughout his career, he started multiple companies including ACIUS, a Macintosh database company, Alltop, an aggregator and organizer of RSS feeds topics.
Guy sat on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the non-profit operating entity of Wikipedia. In 2015 Guy was appointed to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation where he contributed to help democratize knowledge.
Guy was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1954. At Iolani High School, among other formative education, he learned the art of writing, especially, the importance of editing and subsequently he has written The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and twelve other books.
Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA. While attending UCLA, he worked for a fine-jewelry manufacturer. Through this experience, he learned how to sell, and this skill was vital to his career. He also has an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
Friday, January 24th, 2020
5:30 – 6:45 p.m. Reception
6:45 – 9:30 p.m. Program
10:00 p.m. Venue Close
Early bird (before Sunday, January 5th 11pm PST): $70 (60 seats limited)
Regular Registration (before Sunday, January 19th 11pm PST): $90
Late Registration (before Wednesday, January 22nd noon PST): $120
Walk-in: $150
