On Friday, March 27, 2026, "KINESS Honda" officially opened in Shibata City, utilizing the former Honda Elementary School building. This is the city's second facility to repurpose an empty school building into a shared office, following "KINESS Tenno" (former Tenno Elementary School), which opened in October 2022. KINESS Honda will serve as a new hub for supporting research, development, and startup challenges, and plans to collaborate as one of the innovation demonstration sites generated by the Nagaoka University of Technology (NUT) J-PEAKS project.

At this facility, NUT plans to establish the "High-Performance Mushroom Cultivation Business Consortium" in collaboration with Ivy System Inc. and the National Institute of Technology, Kagoshima College, to conduct the demonstration cultivation of high-performance mushrooms. This achievement embodies the "Re-Startup" concept being tackled under the J-PEAKS project. During the opening ceremony, Professor Takashi Yamaguchi presented an overview of this project to approximately 80 attendees.

Following the ceremony, several side events were held, featuring a demonstration of disaster-response robots and an electric mobility experience by NUT students, as well as a rice-ball making and tasting experience using rice grown in the research fields of the university's COI-NEXT project and stored in a "Yukimuro" (snow-cooled storage). These events provided an opportunity for gathered elementary and junior high school students, parents, and local residents to experience cutting-edge technology and research results firsthand, drawing over 50 participants and making the venue a great success.

NUT supports the "Re-Startup" of companies based on core technologies and promotes the advancement of industries that leverage regional characteristics. NUT will continue to further contribute to the revitalization of local industries, the creation of new industries, and the enhancement of regional attractiveness.

Related information

Kines Honda Website:https://shibata-sharedoffice.jp/kiness-honda.php

Issued by

Head Office for Research Strategy, Nagaoka University of Technology: Saito, Takei