DAY
Day 1
TIME
16:00 – 16:20
AREA
Brick Stage
TYPE
Talk + AMA
LANGUAGE
Japanese
As the scope of design continues to expand, more designers are showing interest in the public sector—from local communities to government. This talk explores the intersection of civic tech—citizens engaging with the public sphere through technology—and design.
Since 2013, Code for Japan has fostered a movement of engineers participating in public problem-solving through nationwide communities and hackathons. Yet, even today, practices from civic tech and design have not been fully integrated, despite the rise of service design and social-impact-oriented design.
To bridge this gap, Code for Japan and monlon launched the “Designers in Tech” project, which seeks ways for engineers and designers to collaborate while embracing differences in skill sets and culture.
In this session, we will explore the value generated when both groups co-create—and consider new possibilities for public systems and governance together with the audience.
Yuki Kawabe
Code for Japan | Civic Hacker
Completed a Master’s degree at Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance. Yuki began his career as a freelance engineer while still in school, mainly supporting early-stage startup development.
Since 2022, he has been involved with Code for Japan, contributing to projects related to misinformation countermeasures, web3, urban OS/data interoperability, open data, and climate action. His work spans prototype development and fostering civic tech communities.
In 2024, Yuki became Co-Founder and CTO of Senspace, developing a new social media format—a collaborative digital scrapbook platform.
Shin Okamoto
monlon | Designer / Design Researcher
Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Design at Kyoto Institute of Technology, conducting research on adaptive design for municipalities facing uncertainty. While in school, Shin carried out projects at Code for Japan that applied service design knowledge and digital tools such as citizen-participation platforms.
From 2023 to 2025, he served as a researcher at the Digital Agency, focusing on international digital and innovation policy. Since 2025, he has been a specialist committee member in the OSS research field at the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA).
To advance participatory design practices within Japan’s public governance, Shin founded the nonprofit organization monlon in 2025.