[Behind the Story] 'The Future Can Be Changed by Yourself'

Ahead of the Osaka-Kansai World Exposition (opened April 2025), KDDI and Hitachi jointly created the "Future Life Expo — Future City" exhibition pavilion, presenting a blueprint for future society utilizing digital twin technology. KDDI Brand & Communication Division General Manager Sakamoto Shinichi: "The Expo is where expectations about the future converge. Together with Hitachi, we want to embody an exciting future as experiential content, showing that anyone can realize their own ideas." KDDI VISION 2030 core concept: "KDDI Digital Twin for All" — connecting people and society data, finding optimal solutions through simulation, enabling individuals to design their own futures in human-centered Society 5.0. Hitachi''s Lumada IoT platform contributes AI-driven optimization and real-time data analysis. Production challenge: creating interactive scenarios where visitors feel genuine agency over future outcomes — not passive observers of technology demonstrations. The exhibition design principle: visitors explore how individual choices ("what you do today") create ripple effects across complex urban systems — making abstract digital transformation concepts tangible through embodied simulation. Hitachi representative: "We wanted to avoid the typical tech expo trap of showing what technology can do rather than how it serves human needs. The scenarios are designed around social problems citizens actually care about — not technology capabilities we want to demonstrate." Key design decision: making the scenarios specifically set in the 2030s (not sci-fi future) to create urgency and relevance — these are problems Japan must address within the professional lifetimes of young visitors today.