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Establish a Safe and Secure Society

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, NEC has provided support for disaster-affected regions in a variety of ways. In fiscal 2012, NEC focused on accelerating its support for disaster recovery, working to establish a safe and secure society while placing value on communication with the people of the region.

Accelerating Support for Recovery

To accelerate its efforts to support disaster recovery, in November 2011 NEC established the Revival Support Promotion Office. The office consists of a company-wide, cross-organizational team from NEC’s sales, business planning, product, service, and CSR divisions, as well as team members on the ground in three Tohoku prefectures（Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima）and support staff in Tokyo working together to promote various activities.

NEC is pushing ahead with recovery support from the perspective of the affected regions, focusing on the areas shown in the below chart, including disaster prevention and reduction, energy, and local communities.

NEC's ICT solutionas for supporting recovery

Following are some specific examples of these initiatives.

Strengthening Bonds between Residents in Temporary Housing

Residents enjoy a healthy exercise
program broadcast over the Kizuna
Channel

In March 2012, in cooperation with the town of Wataricho (Miyagi Prefecture) and the Institute of Cultural Affairs, Japan (ICA), an NPO, NEC began test broadcasting of a community development support system (known as the “Kizuna Channel”) over terrestrial digital-compatible televisions, targeting 85 families living in temporary housing.

With this system, local governments and residents themselves create content useful for their everyday lives, which can then be distributed using super-compact transmitters, for easy viewing over terrestrial digital televisions in each home. Content is simple to create using consumer-grade video cameras and personal computers. Because it can be made available over the same televisions people use every day, everyone—from the elderly to the young—can participate in communicating and sharing information free of any digital divide.

This, in turn, deepens and strengthens the bonds between residents, who may have come from many different regions, and provides an impetus for the rejuvenation of disaster-affected areas and new community development.

Supporting Recovery of Salt-Water-Damaged Farmland

Sensors installed on farmland

Since August 2011, NEC has worked with My Farm Co., Ltd. to support the recovery of farmland damaged by salt water following the tsunami.

My Farm Co., Ltd. provides farmers with a newly developed soil remediation material which uses microorganisms to break down the salt in seawater-damaged soil. NEC has installed sensors which measure temperature, humidity, salt concentrations in soil and other parameters on farmlands, then uses its CONNEXIVE M2M Service Platform (*) to measure the effectiveness of the soil remediation material. According to measurements taken by My Farm, salt concentrations fell from 2.6% in June 2011, prior to application of the material, to 0.7% (a level at which tomato cultivation becomes possible) in August, two months later, verifying the effectiveness of the treatment.

NEC will continue working with My Farm in contributing to the revitalization of salt-water-damaged farmlands in Tohoku.

Making Radiation Levels Visible for Regional Safety

Monitoring post installed
in Fukushima Prefecture

Since December 2011, NEC has been providing its CONNEXIVE Radiation Measurement Solution, which contributes to making radiation levels more visible by measuring, displaying, and transmitting information on atmospheric radiation in real time.

This solution enables users to easily view data collected by radiation sensors installed in schools, hospitals, and parks. The data is regularly delivered to cloud servers and thereby made conveniently accessible from PCs, smartphones, and mobile phones.

Between January and March 2012, the solution was also used as part of radiation monitoring information provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, with monitoring posts containing sensors installed in over 500 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, including kindergartens, schools, and parks.

By continuing to provide technology that makes radiation levels more visible, NEC will contribute to regional safety.

Depiction of the CONNEXIVE Radiation Measurement Solution

(*)CONNEXIVE M2M Service Platform
M2M is short for "machine to machine," and refers to technology with which devices and machinery which previously lacked the ability to communicate can connect to a communication network. This enables devices to communicate with each other directly and without human intervention, automating management, monitoring, and data collection between devices, and it provides services through them. A massive number of devices exist as potential targets for M2M, both in Japan and around the world, with a wide variety of functions across diverse fields. Connecting these devices through M2M communication is expected to bring significant progress in every field, creating new services, bringing innovation to processes, and making business more efficient. CONNEXIVE is a platform for providing the services to do these things.

Contributing to Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation through Submarine Earthquake and Tsunami Observation

Ocean observation system off
the coast of Taiwan

Since 1979, NEC has installed cabled submarine earthquake and tsunami observation systems in 9 locations around Japan. NEC is currently building equipment for new systems to be installed off the coasts of East Japan and Shikoku. To date, all of the systems delivered by NEC have continued to operate normally without any breakdowns. When the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, these observation systems continuously transmitted valuable data to observation centers onshore.

In November 2011, NEC completed the installation of an integrated ocean observation system for the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan. This was NEC's first ocean floor observation project for an overseas buyer. In addition to observing earthquakes and tsunami, the system is designed to enable integrated ocean environment observation, including monitoring of the submarine environment.

In March 2012, NEC was chosen to deliver ocean survey and submarine equipment for the ocean bottom seismic and tsunami network along the Japan Trench to the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED). This will be a large-scale submarine earthquake and tsunami observation network enabling seismic and tsunami observation across an extensive area of ocean ranging from waters off the coast of the Boso Peninsula to Nemuro, as well as the outer areas of ocean along the Japan Trench axis.

NEC will continue to support the enhancement of earthquake and tsunami observation systems, with the aim of contributing to disaster preparedness and mitigation around the world.

In addition to these business activities, social contributions and employees volunteering are posted here.

Aiming for New Town Development

Hiroshi Higashihara
Associate Senior Vice President and in
charge of Revival Support Promotion Office,
NEC Corporation

Besides assisting with the rapid recovery of disaster-affected regions, NEC will also develop new town development proposals such as smart cities from a medium- and long-term perspective.
Following the Great East Japan Earthquake, the issues faced by communities over the years have become apparent. To solve these issues, we would like to put the collective weight of the entire NEC Group behind providing “new ICT solutions.” We also plan to extend innovative examples of such solutions across Japan and overseas.