Facing Issues Head-On: Visits from Sony Employees

Sony's hands-on employee program began as one of several initiatives designed to utilize Sony's three strengths - its products and content, its technologies, and its employees - to build a corporate foundation that can contribute to efforts addressing social issues. Although each location and issue addressed is different each time, the foundational framework remains the same: employees begin by visiting the affected area and listening to people involved, after which they find specific key issues and, through their own experience and skills, come up with methods to tackle the problem. We asked Aida about the reasoning behind this framework:

"Even if people care about social issues, truly understanding them and realizing that they are part of the reality around you can be challenging. We wanted to inspire Sony employees to take action by creating opportunities to visit the areas and hear from the people who are tackling these issues on the ground directly. Additionally, by connecting their plans to address these issues to their own day-to-day work, we also lay the groundwork for further action to be taken on these issues in the future."

First launching in April 2023, the program has collaborated with several of Sony's partnered organizations, including the NGO Save the Children Japan to take on issues affecting children in India, and UNICEF for the program's second session in November 2024, where participants learned local initiatives addressing mental health issues affecting both children and expectant and nursing mothers, once again in India. The program then partnered with the non-profit organization CROSS FIELDS for its third round in May 2025, which was held on the Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Noto's Growing Need for Children's Spaces and Opportunities

Although the program's third round was conducted in areas affected by the January 2024 Noto earthquake, the program specifically focused on the "limited educational opportunities for children in areas of decreasing population" as its key social problem. Non-profit organization Chance For All, which provided assistance in the direct aftermath of the Noto earthquake and has collaborated with Sony's KANDO Experience Program to help eliminate educational inequality in Japan, reported that spaces for children had already been lacking in Noto as a result of population decline, a problem which the earthquake greatly exacerbated. This information served as the deciding factor in determining the program's focus.

Aiming to visit this area and create new ideas to enrich children's experience and learning, 13 employees gathered to attend the program which Aida planned. These employees ranged in age from their 20s to their 50s and came from 8 different companies within Sony Group, including entertainment businesses under Game & Network Services and Music, as well as Imaging & Sensing Solutions and Entertainment, Technology & Services. We asked one participant, Takuya Inaba from Sony Corporation, about his expectations for the program:

"Although I didn't have a strong sense of educational disparities in rural, nature-rich areas like this, I know that a lot of people are working hard to combat the issue. By visiting the area and observing with my own eyes and ears, I'm hoping that I can bridge the gap between my perception and the actual situation, and that I can gain a new perspective by making this issue my own."

Upon arriving in Noto, Sony employees were able to see the mobile playground "PlayCars" provided by Chance For All directly after the disaster, as well as hear from people working on various issues in the surrounding area. One of these people was Nami Moriyama, President and CEO of Misogigawa Co., a company based in the city of Nanao in Ishikawa Prefecture, which is assisting in development and reconstruction of the city. Ms. Moriyama believes that now is the chance to tackle social issues that the Noto area had been facing long before the earthquake, including population decline. One Sony employee felt moved by how she was looking forward to the future even in the aftermath of the earthquake. "If this program can serve as a stepping stone for people from Sony to view Noto as an opportunity; as a place to work with, then it's a success," Ms. Moriyama told us hopefully.

Sony's Employees' Diversity

One month after returning from Noto, a series of presentations were held at Sony Headquarters where each member of the thirteen-person team presented their ideas for enriching children's experience and learning, based on their insights gained in Noto, as well as their own areas of expertise. A participant from Sony's telecommunications company, Sony Network Communications, presented a mobile app that could link user-recorded data with location data to create an "emotion map" tracking interesting sights and events in the area; an expert on light-sensing devices from Sony Semiconductor Solutions presented a workshop for children that taught about the properties of light. Each presentation featured the presenter's skills and strengths used in their daily work.

Assigned shortly after the disaster and still continuing to support children in Noto, Chance For All Representative Director Isana Nakayama joined the Sony employees for both the trip to Noto and the presentations. "Rather than pure theoreticals, many of these ideas seem genuinely actionable," said Mr. Nakayama. "I felt that new possibilities were created by being able to collaborate and utilize the experience everyone's accumulated in their work." Aida also commented, "although everyone went on the same trip and had the same overall experience, what issues stood out and struck people, and the plans that they devised to tackle those issues were all different." She expressed high hopes towards for Sony employees' diversity and the potential future these plans held.

Not Simply Visitors: Showing Sony's Employees' Full Potential

Though the program officially ends with the presentations, many members continue their projects on their own.

Members of the program's first round to India submitted their idea to Sony's Challe-Suppo bottom-up idea contest and won the Grand Prize. They then traveled back to India and created a workshop teaching children how to solve the problems they see in the world around them. This workshop used MESH™ IoT blocks in order to help develop children's curiosity, and was produced in collaboration with CurioStep with Sony, a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) educational program created and managed by Sony. The team continues to address social issues in their work in 2025, holding similar workshops in Japan as to the ones they conducted in India.

Members from the program's third round have also begun implementing what they've learned into their work. "I've learned that business activities are also creating new social issues," one member said. "I find myself discussing my questions with others and sharing more information than before," said another. The effect that these employees and their new perspectives will have within Sony is surely yet another valuable result of the program.

Concerning the program's future, Aida states that "the last three rounds have each made an impact, so we'd love to continue holding the program." In the face of sustainability issues, these projects to create a livable society for everyone, as well as the people who face these major social problems head-on while creating them are an indispensable part of Sony's Sustainability Vision to "inspire a world filled with emotion for this generation and beyond." By increasing awareness of social issues amongst its diverse body of employees, and by cultivating new possibilities and the will to engage with them, Sony continues to expand its initiatives to tackle the social problems of today.