The 1st Kounose IoT Workshop was held

Madame Kounose prepares meals

On May 14, 2022, a "Hometown Revitalization Gathering" was held in the Kumamurato district.

The Hometown Revitalization Gathering is a resident-led event that brings together residents of the Kounose district, which was affected by the heavy rains of 2020, to discuss the future recovery and reconstruction of the Kounose district.

In the morning, we went to help out at Kamise Nursery School in the Kounose district, where the ladies known as "Kounose Madames" were preparing meals.

After the torrential rains, the local community has been continuing to prepare meals as an activity to keep the community united. Now, twice a month, on the afternoon of the Hometown Revival Gathering, the menu is prepared and the meals are delivered by the men of the "Kounose Dandy" group.

Now that we are all living separately, the ladies seemed to enjoy meeting up regularly to catch up on how we were all doing.

Working with local residents on IoT projects

In the afternoon, we moved to the Watari district, where temporary housing is located. We gathered mainly with residents of the Kounose district who live in the Watari district.

Project leader Yukihiro Shimatani from Kumamoto Prefectural University and Professor Naoya Furuta (Taisho University), leader of the IoT project, gave a presentation on green watershed flood control and this project.

Research topic 3 is "Regional DX." This is a research project that uses IoT technology to help local people make their communities safer and more secure through their own efforts, and aims to improve the disaster prevention capabilities of the region in a bottom-up manner.

For example, several visions were explained, such as installing cameras that could monitor the state of the river so that the information could be viewed on a smartphone and family members living far away could also access the information.

It seemed like some people still hadn't fully understood the idea at the initial stage, but I think that as we continue to meet face-to-face and talk, the idea will gradually sink in.