For social businesses, the need to address social issues while also making a profit means that many young social entrepreneurs falter at the first hurdle. To prevent such good intentions going to waste, Kazunari Taguchi runs a firm that offers investment and expertise that help set such projects on the path to success. We follow a social business incubator that has already helped launch 9 social businesses with a combined annual turnover of around 3 billion yen.

Yasukane Matsumoto is the founder of a web-based printing service that has seen revenues increase 50-fold over in just 4 years. Using a network of small printing firms, the service matches each job request to the ideal printing press, boosting efficiency for customer and printer alike by using factory downtime to produce limited runs. Also offering distribution through haulage firms, Matsumoto's company uses IT to empower small, long-established businesses as part of the sharing economy.

While still a student, Shunji Sugaya started an IT company focused on artificial intelligence and robots for use on the farms of the future. Agriculture in Japan faces serious challenges like an aging population and shrinking workforce. Sugaya imagines robots and drones that reduce labor demands and farms that are run using big data. Today we look at Sugaya and the young engineers at his company in their efforts to shape the future of agriculture and fishing with cutting-edge technology.