When I was new, I had no knowledge of digital.

Yamagata was born and raised in Morimachi. He graduated from high school in 1998 and started working at Morimachi Town Hall. He was first assigned to the department in charge of public housing, and five years later he was transferred to the information department.

"When I started working there was only one word processor in the city hall, and even approval documents were written by hand. Around 2000, however, local governments began to demand that everyone have their own computer, and the national government took the lead in promoting IT." My first job was to lay LAN cables in the building. I also set up computers, created servers, designed networks, and was responsible for everything digital. "I didn't go to an information-related school, so I didn't know much about it, and I was the youngest person in the office, so I was the one who was entrusted with it," Yamagata said with a laugh. "When it came to technical matters, I received support from the vendor that made the infrastructure, and they were all really nice and patiently explained things to me when I didn't understand something. They would often say, 'It would cost money to ask our company to do it, so it's better for you to do it yourself. I'll show you how to do it.' Supported by this conscience of the Internet, I was able to absorb a lot of knowledge."

Yamagata-san around 2003, when he had just become the information specialist

For the first five years, they focused on preparing the facilities. They were busy every day trying to make things work and get them up and running. Just when they thought they had finally taken shape, the time came to update the equipment... and so they kept it running at full capacity.

My local university accepted me as I wanted to conduct research.

One issue that was always on the agenda was cost reduction. "When you ask a vendor to do everything, costs tend to be high. I wanted to use new technology to solve this problem, but the town hall couldn't come up with the funds. At first, I researched using my own money, but as my technical skills improved, the scale of the project grew. There were times when I wanted to spend several million yen on tests, but it was too difficult." At that time, my boss at the time asked me, "What do you think is the point of having a university in the community?" He gave me the advice, "If you want to do something new to solve the problems and issues facing the community, try talking to a university. They might be able to work with you on research." "I thought, so that's what a university is like, and when I searched for 'Future University Hakodate' on mixi, I came across Professor Michiko Oba, so I decided to contact her. She was very interested in my idea and said, 'Come visit us right away.'"

Future University Hakodate

The unexpected disaster showed us the direction we needed to move forward.

Future University Hakodate is a single-faculty university consisting of one faculty, the School of Systems Information Science. The professor may have been surprised when the town hall staff approached him and said they wanted to conduct research. However, seeing Yamagata's enthusiastic attitude, he put effort into the joint research. At this time, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. Mori Town in southern Hokkaido, close to Tohoku, was also affected, with the tsunami reaching close to the evacuation center where the townspeople had gathered, and various other damages were reported throughout the area. "Even when I tried to use the phone to contact people, it was difficult to get through. But I was able to use the Internet, and I was reminded once again of its strength in times of disaster. At the same time, there were problems when foreign residents wanted to contact their home countries, as I was the only one who knew about the town hall network. So I felt more and more that we needed to create an environment where anyone could continue to use it." This incident prompted us to start research on open data (data made public under rules that allow anyone to use it for secondary purposes) in collaboration with a university. In 2012, we began full-scale operation of a public cloud (a service that allows users to share and use servers and software via the Internet) for local governments. "I learned the concept of open data from Professor Oba. The idea is that the data we at the town hall create is a public good, and that it should be available to everyone. This is called 'open by default.' Professor Oba also said that this was very interesting research."

I want to preserve the memories of this disappearing town somewhere.

Now, changes are occurring in your personal life as well. "My grandmother developed dementia. I was very close to her, so I was conflicted about putting her in a facility and felt lonely because I couldn't have a proper conversation with her."

Memories of his grandmother fade day by day. Witnessing this, Yamagata began to wonder, "Is there a way to preserve information about my grandmother?" When he talked about this with a friend who is well versed in open data and whom he met during joint research with Future University, he was told, "Not only new information, but archiving old information can also become a database," and "There are activities to preserve old data." "At first it was for personal reasons, because I wanted to preserve the town that my grandmother had seen, but then I started to think that there might be people who love Morimachi and want to preserve the history of their area. When I looked at Morimachi's Wikipedia page, I found that at the time there were only nine entries of information. But there are many more stories that I had heard from my grandmother. So I decided to preserve them, and that's how I started the organization called Howmori ." In 2015, Howmori organized the "1st Wikipedia Town Morimachi," where 10 participants researched the history of Morimachi in the library and added information to Wikipedia. Through this activity, information on Morimachi, which previously only had nine entries, was expanded in an instant. Even people who don't know anything about Morimachi can now understand the general outline just by opening Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia Town initiative won the Grand Prize in the Idea category at the LOD Challenge 2014 (2015).

Memories of the city are also recorded in photographs.

Since then, they have been holding study sessions and events on open data, and have also started a project called "Recording Memories," in which they collect old photographs related to Morimachi and combine them with the current scenery. "I had been doing this as a sort of hobby, until a friend from Rissho University asked me if we could do something together. So he brought his students to Hokkaido, and they helped me identify the locations of the old photos and go and take present-day photos."

This project continued for about three years, with students visiting Morimachi every year. Some students took the initiative, saying, "I want to start the same project in my hometown," and some even planned an exhibition of old photographs and maps at their university's cultural festival. Gradually, "Records of Memories" began to spread beyond Morimachi.

Students choosing photos together with Morimachi residents

Yamagata-san has seen how the analogue region has gradually become colorful with the help of the Internet. He retired from the town office at the end of 2021 and has begun activities to create a richer life for not only Morimachi but also the surrounding living areas.

Yamagata giving a lecture at Rissho University

You can work well and live happily in the countryside.

Currently, Yamagata is a member of the Govtech team at Code for Japan, a general incorporated association, where he is mainly involved in research and support for the digitalization of government administration across Japan, while also taking part in community activities related to the use of information technology by local governments in Hokkaido. As an expert with a deep knowledge of open data, he also works as an "Open Data Evangelist for the Cabinet Secretariat IT Strategy Office," being dispatched to seminars hosted by local governments. He is currently renovating a used property to create a base. Rather than trying to achieve big dreams or ambitions, he tries out interesting things that are in front of him. If he gets a little bored, he quits. How does Yamagata, who has such a stance, look to the local people?

The new facility will be called "Yamanaka Digital."

Currently under renovation

"For about a year now, I've been doing this content where I put on earphones with a microphone and talk to people on a voice SNS app while commuting to work every morning. I've continued this even now that I've retired from the town hall, but apparently people are saying things like, 'A big man walking around town alone in the morning, grinning' (laughs). It's certainly a bit strange. People are saying things like, 'What does that guy do for a living?' and 'I hear he's doing some amazing things with IT.'" It's unsettling to have people whispering about it behind my back, but Yamagata says, "I hope it spreads more." This is because there is still a strong image that if you want to work in a rural town, you have limited options, such as taking over the family business, becoming a civil servant, or working in a supermarket. "I hope that young people will get the idea that there are many more jobs out there, and that you can have a good job in the countryside, from seeing these 'adults who don't really know what kind of work they do.'"

Mt. Komagatake and the sunset that Yamagata-san loves

Needless to say, remote work and dual-base living, which have become common in recent years, are only possible thanks to the great power of the Internet. If young people with new ways of working leave Morimachi, the town will become even more interesting. Not only in terms of work style, but also in terms of life itself, the feeling that "it's impossible because it's the countryside" may be gradually fading. Even today, Yamagata puts his motto, "Just have a seat," into practice in various places, and continues to bring a ray of light brought by digital to the small town.