A Global award-winning
The following text is a re-edited The Shizuoka Baseball Fan Club's the press release.
Takehito Akima, Director of The Shizuoka Baseball Fan Club, was selected as one of the 11 innovators representing Japan in the event “NEXT INNOVATOR”, and he was awarded the honourable “Wired Audi INNOVATION AWARD”.
What is the “WIRED Audi INNOVATION AWARD”?
The theme of the project is “Creating a bright future for Japan and the world”. Based on this theme, we focus on innovators who are trying new things in a variety of fields with original ideas and visions and make their activities known to the public. Through such publicity, we bring people who identify themselves with those visions together. Moreover, it is a global award which is held in five countries.
Takehito Akima received “NEXT INNVOVATOR” Award after being selected by the editorial section at WIRED and Audi, based on a public vote which seeks scientists, entrepreneurs and inventors who could have huge impact on the world from the readers.
The Shizuoka Baseball Fan Club acts aiming at social contributions through sports and solving social problems through baseball. Our activities focus on promoting sports, in order to achieve our aim to contribute to intercultural society and local community with co-creation by social contributions through sports for children living in and nearby the Enshu area. The Shizuoka Baseball Fan Club contributes to the society by creating a professional baseball club in order to solve social problems facing local communities and children in and nearby the Enshu area. .
Some of Social issue we focus on include human rights violations of the LGBT community and excessive capital investment in facilities related to the Tokyo Olympics.
We believe that these problems could be solved by making use of the roles and functions that sports have. We are really glad that the importance of our activities was recognized by a third party who awarded the prize to us, which has given us higher motivation in realizing a better society.
The following text is a re-edited interview originally published in the Newspaper.
Crowdfunding (CF), raising investors through the Internet, is spreading into the world of sports. There are people who think, “I want to make my dream of creating baseball team come true” or “I want to save the team from lack of funds”. We keep track of people like them, who are looking for an option of raising capital of a small amount.
One step to the dream of founding a baseball team in an independent professional baseball league
“I want to establish a baseball team that can join in an independent professional baseball league”, said Takehito Akima (31) who started using crowdfunding last autumn to raise 1.5 million yen so that he can establish a company that owns a baseball team.
He chose Hamamatsu baseball field as the home ground of the team. He aims to join the “Route-Inn BC league” no later than in April 2018.
“I want to make local people agree by explaining why we need a baseball team”, he said.
He came up with this idea, even though he had not played baseball at all, when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit. While he was working at a consulting firm in Tokyo at the time, he visited the affected areas many times as a volunteer.
Meanwhile, he knew that if the Great Nankai Trough Earthquake occurred, Tokai region of Honshu (incl. Aichi, Shizuoka, Mie and southern Gifu prefectures) could suffer greater damage than that in East Japan.
Source:the Japan Daily Press
“It is important to help each other when natural disasters occur. So we need to make interregional exchange more active, and a local baseball team is the key.” — this idea came to his mind and gradually changed into a strong conviction.
Hamamatsu city is home to the famous amateur baseball team Yamaha Baseball Club. Kawai Musical Instruments Mfg. Co., Ltd. used to have a baseball team as well. It competed with Yamaha, so people in Hamamatsu have a strong emotional attachment to baseball. This is why Akima chose the city as the home ground. After starting using CF, the funds amount to 1.8 million yen in three months.
He left his job last April to move to Hamamatsu. He established a general incorporated association called “Shizuoka Kennmin Kyudan (/Shizuoka Baseball Fan Club)” as a first base to found a firm, and he himself become the president of the association. Now he promotes the importance of founding a baseball team by holding symposia. “My idea is now more than just a dream thanks to CF. I have taken the first step”, mentioned Akima.
