Hokkaido Entrepreneurship Expo 2026, is an expo event, celebrating and promoting entrepreneurship in Hokkaido. The event is in collaboration with Hokkaido University. The event will feature a pitch relay with local startups, shining a spotlight on the diversity and quality of the Hokkaido entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Agenda
We have a tightly packed schedule for HEEX this year, with 3 separate sessions:
- Pitch Relay: 5 startups will pitch for 5 minutes each, with no Q&A. The focus is on giving the startups a platform to share their story and current challenges, without the pressure and distractions of a competition format.
- Maximising Your Productivity with AI as a Founder / Solo-Founder: Visiting entrepreneur Dayhana Correa will give a presentation on how solo founders and small teams, can optimize their day-to-day operations, by leveraging generative AI tools. View the full session description and poster below.
- Fireside Chat: A fireside chat focused around university entrepreneurship, with a panel of experts from both the startup and academic worlds. The discussion will revolve around the current state of university entrepreneurship in Hokkaido, and how it can be improved to better support startups and entrepreneurs.
- Networking: As always, we will wrap up the event with a networking session, giving attendees the opportunity to connect with the startups, panelists, and other attendees. This is a great opportunity for investors, businesses, and other stakeholders to connect with the local startup ecosystem, and for startups to connect with potential partners, customers, and investors.
Objectives
To give investors, businesses and other stakeholders a streamlined, noise-free view of what our ecosystem has to offer, and the current state of entrepreneurship in Hokkaido.
Through this, we aim to promote the region, and to facilitate collaboration and networking between local startups, local businesses, international entrepreneurs, and relevant stakeholders, like media and investors.
The HEEX Pitch Relay
Removing the traditional competition format from a pitch event, allows more time and focus for the startups.
Rather than constructing their pitches around trying to win a competition, they get to structure it around whatever challenge is currently most relevant to them - no matter if that’s raising money, finding customers, finding board members, or something else entirely.
All the power of a pitch event, with none of the fluff.
Requirements for participating startups
- Be either fully or partially conducting business in Hokkaido.
- Be able to pitch in English or Japanese - we recommend preparing in English to maximize reach, due to the expected international audience.
- Stick within the 5 minute pitch time limit.
- Be available to pitch on the event date.
Maximising Your Productivity with AI as a Founder / Solo-Founder
You keep hearing that AI will change everything. But are you actually using it or just watching others get ahead?
Most founders are leaving time, money, and clarity on the table simply because they don't know which tools to use or how to combine them.
Dayhana Correa, Founder of GoStartup and SheAI Ambassador will walk you through the tools you can use daily to save time, understand clients better, scale operations, and build a stronger digital presence.
From Gemini and NotebookLM to Notion and beyond you'll see real use cases, honest comparisons between different LLMs, and leave with a practical tech stack you can actually start using the next day.
No hype. No overwhelm. Just the right tools, in the right order, for founders who are serious about working smarter.
Fireside Chat on University Entrepreneurship
The fireside chat will be moderated by Victor Gram Thomsen, co-founder of Tryp.com, a TravelTech startup originally founded while the founders were still university students, and incubated in the University of Southern Denmark's startup environment.
The full panel is still being locked down, but it wil feature a mix of experts from both the startup and academic worlds.
Supporters
This event is organized in collaboration with STARTUP HOKKAIDO, Shake H, and Hokkaido University. All our events are executed with the support of Guramu Software 合同会社.
