Miyagi University has announced that the　University and Izunuma Nousan Co., Ltd. have started a joint verification experiment of an ICT farming and welfare cooperation model. In this experiment, an avatar robot (OriHime) developed by OryLab inc. will be operated by a person with severe disabilities from their home. This project aims at "securing human resources for agriculture” and “providing more working opportunities for people with severe disabilities” at the same time through ICT.

During the period from November 24^th to December 6^th, they conducted two demonstration experiments as follows.

(1) advance training at manufacturing site, sales and customer service division

(2) sales and customer service at product exhibition and “Antenna Shops”, outlets that sell regional foods and products.

They intend to achieve these three goals by conducting the experiments:

(1) To strengthen promotional activities for agricultural products.

(2) To create new employment opportunities for people with severe physical disabilities

(3) To train people with severe physical disabilities to become "connectors" between rural areas and cities.

This project is being carried out with the support of a "Science and Technology Research Grant” for the 2nd half of 2019 awarded by the Watanabe Memorial Foundation for the Promotion of New Technology.

For further information, please visit the following link (Japanese Only):https://www.myu.ac.jp/academics/news/folder003/4139/