With the public attention focused on the government's response to COVID-19, the delay in Japan's digitalization, appearing as disruptions in the issuance of benefits and introduction of online classes, has become more apparent and evident than ever. Behind the arising of such circumstances, we have reason to believe that the presence of two challenges, "digital trust" and "digital divide" cast a significant negative impact. A lack of "digital trust" in the government is a dire challenge which hinders citizens from wholeheartedly entrusting their faith in the government's digital policies, which in turn is attributable to not being able to accumulate and make effective use of personal data for better services. "Digital divide" is another fundamental issue which entails the difficulty, especially for senior citizens, of accessing necessary information and digital services with relative ease. To give a familiar example, moving can lead to the undertaking of the most cumbersome of procedures starting with the change of address of resident register, and ultimately the same details transcribed and registered in ones' IDs, utility bills and bank account information. If such data could be linked and coordinated, it would save one from repetitive and tedious formalities. The more merits and convenience realized by digitalization are experienced through the citizens, the further motivated they will become to actively participate in the digital society. This we expect, will progressively lead to the effective development of digital infrastructure which will enable and accelerate DX in Japan.

Now, casting our vision further down along the timeline, I would like to discuss the future of digital societies. Corporations have long been providers of "products". However, in recent years, encouraged by the progress of digital technologies, they are actively engaging in collaborative creation with other companies, and transforming to become purveyors of new "service" value. Taking the railways as an example, it is now possible to operate trains corresponding to the number of actual passengers and to improve the utilization rate of each vehicle through predictive diagnostics of mechanical failures. Concurrently, other means of transportation, are also increasingly becoming networked and connected to data and information, due to the emergence of the rapidly growing MaaS (Mobility as a Service) business. Let us for a moment imagine what would happen if citizens became to value means of transportation with safer services and less greenhouse gas emissions. This suggests that their choices can endorse and help shape the value of environment and safety in society.

To utilize the "creative choice of value" by the citizens for the evolution of the social system portrayed in Society 5.0, it is essential to integrate each citizen's experience, namely buying, learning, and moving, in the social digital infrastructure and flexibly improve the social system based on such collected data. Looking ahead at such future vision, the urgent task at hand, is to encourage citizens to participate in the digital infrastructure and to obtain trust from them to help realize this vision. Expectations for digital reform driven by the newly established Digital Agency are extremely high, however, the role and what we, as the business community can do, is also growing even more significant.