＜Why I created a venture company＞"Free research" as a career (Yousuke Kadacho, Inceptum Co., Ltd.)

　I like to build experimental devices from scratch. I am doing research on microbial fuel cells, and I have been assembling this equipment since I was an undergraduate student. I was happy that some companies paid attention to my devices. However, I regret that I was not in a position to take responsibility for my research at the time, so I could not lead to joint research. I decided to start my own company to strengthen my desire to be a researcher who can conduct research with various people and to continue challenging themes with a high degree of freedom. Inceptum" means "experiment" in Latin. We chose this as the name of our company because we want to realize a society in which everyone can exercise their creativity. What encouraged me to launch the company was my selection as a finalist in the Ibaraki Tech Planter. It is a good thing to take action, isn't it? I took the opportunity of participating in a program aimed at social implementation of the results of this research to communicate a world view of power generation from unused biomass using microbial fuel cells, and then an interesting project came in. The project was to take evidence that a certain material activates microorganisms in animal feces in order to make effective use of animal feces. The researcher on the other side was not a specialist in microorganisms, so he could not obtain data and could not proceed to empirical research. So, Inceptum obtained experimental data on microorganisms and bridged the gap between different fields. I realized that I enjoyed being able to handle risky research topics while taking a freely fitting position. There is still a long road of research to go before microbial fuel cells can be widely used. There are many development elements, such as improving the modification of electrode surfaces and examining the metabolism of microorganisms to increase power generation efficiency. At Inceptum, we will take advantage of our ability to build on our knowledge of microbial fuel cells to discover interesting themes related to them. I would like to "live as a researcher" by working on challenging themes with people from diverse fields. (Text by Mai Inoue) (Reprinted from INCU-BE No. 61)

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Yosuke Sorimachi

D. in Agriculture, University of Tsukuba. Master (Agricultural Science). In 2019, while working as a research scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), he founded the University of Tsukuba VentureInceptum Inc.He is also involved in supporting high school exploration activities and entrepreneurship development activities. He is also involved in supporting research and development at companies and universities, as well as supporting exploratory activities at high schools and fostering entrepreneurship, utilizing his knowledge and experience in microbiology and electrochemistry.