Hirokazu Shimoda is Director of the Bio-Industry Division within the Commerce and Service Industry Policy Group at METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan). Since joining METI in 1999, he has contributed to IT policy, cybersecurity, and biotechnology innovation, and has developed compensation standards and industrial policies for biotech and regenerative medicine. He has served as Executive Director at JETRO in San Francisco and as a fellow at the World Economic Forum. He holds a degree in Electronic and Physical Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology.