Strong sense of ownership brought about by the unit of East Hokkaido

――DotDoto has steadily expanded its business from event planning to guidebook production and municipal government work, and the next development it released was a service called “DOTO-NET. Could you tell us how you decided to start this?

Nakanishi：Simply put, we wanted to create a scheme that would generate reinvestment within the community. We are getting a blessing from the satoyama, so let's give back to the satoyama as well. I'm using the satoyama analogy again (laughs).

The concept of “DOTO-NET” is to support young people under 29 years old to the best of our ability. We are creating a system in which elders, companies, and local governments in Doto provide funds and through which young people can achieve self-fulfillment. The organization that implements this policy is in the form of Dot-Doto.

Outline of DOTO-NET

――That is truly a secretariat position.

Nakanishi：That's right. The reason why I created this service is because if we do nothing, the population of the community will continue to decrease. If that happens, unless we increase the number of high-performing people, we will not be able to maintain social services and infrastructure.

The current population of the East Hokkaido region is approximately 900,000, but it is estimated to decrease to 650,000 by 2045, a decrease of about 30%. Of course, there will be areas that will be supplemented by technological advancements, but simply looking at the numbers alone, it means that the current standard of living cannot be maintained unless each person works about 1.5 times harder. In other words, if we do not nurture high-performing people and create an environment where each individual can demonstrate his or her strength, Doto could go bankrupt. In this light, people, companies, and local governments in the East of Hokkaido should properly invest in the young people who will support the future of this region.

――With this sense of challenge, you have started initiatives to support young people.

Nakanishi：Until now, there was no such system, so young people who wanted to do something had to do it on their own. However, if there is support from the local community, it will be easier for anyone to take on challenges, and the possibility of giving them proper shape will increase.

I think that people who are able to produce results in this way will not forget the support they received, and will become aware of their own desire to support others as well. Like, “Now that we have harvested a lot of fruit from the tree, let's give back to those around us.” If that happens, I think we can create an ecosystem where reinvestment will continue for a long time.

――It is a cycle in which young people who receive support from the community grow up and in turn become supporters.

Nakanishi：When I look at the people who participate in DOTO-NET, at this point there are more elders and companies who support them than young people who receive support.

――Amazing! I guess that's because it's an area where people think of the community as their own thing. It seems hard to imagine the same thing happening in Tokyo.

Nakanishi：That may be so. I think that if people come to love a region, they will naturally feel the need to give back to it. I think it is Dot Doto's role to foster such a feeling and increase the momentum to make the region a good place to live.

In the course of our activities at Dot Doto, we have seen many examples of how the support of those around us can lead to someone's self-realization. If not only we, but also everyone in the community became involved in the project as if it were their own, there would be even more people to support. I believe that this would be a source of hope for a region with a continuing population decline.

The release event of “DOTO-NET

Nozawa：From our point of view, “DOTO-NET” is what we have been doing all this time. Everything DotDoto has done is like DOTO-NET. We want to do this not only by ourselves, but also with local people, companies, and municipalities.

I think I am the first person to benefit from Dot-Doto's efforts. I was pulled up from a place where I knew nothing. Because of that experience, I want to make Dot Doto a place where people who want to do something can get involved, just like I did in the past. If there is a young person who has no experience but wants to do creative work in the future, I will go with him or her to the interview site. If someone wants to open a store, I will introduce him or her to someone who is already running a store. If there is someone who is interested in something, even if it is just a millimeter or two, I would like to help them along.

――Are there projects that have already taken shape through DOTO-NET?

Nozawa：There is a communication tool that all participants can see, and young people write down what they want to do. There are not many of them yet, but we would like to realize as many of their ideas as possible.

Recently, there was a request to “communicate with DOTO-NET people through an asparagus harvesting experience,” so we connected with farmers, recruited participants, and had everyone go out to harvest asparagus. After the actual experience, one of the planners said to me, “I realized that what I said could come true,” which made me very happy.

――It is a great success story that I was able to achieve what I wanted to do.

Asparagus picking experience realized through DOTO-NET

Tokachi's foodstuff dinner party realized through “DOTO-NET”.

Nakanishi：DOTO-NET” is open to municipalities that subscribe to and support ‘DOTO-NET,’ and we are opening up functions such as news releases to them. As I said, municipalities are also aware of the population outflow, so if we can develop “DOTO-NET” as an interface to deliver information to young people who are interested in East Hokkaido, I think it will become an irreplaceable service.

Since there are few universities in Doto, many people leave the area after graduating from high school, and this is a major volume zone for population outflow. However, if we can create a situation where everyone is on “DOTO-NET” before leaving Doto, it will provide a point of contact when they want to get involved with their hometown, and conversely, I think it is important for the local community to be able to access people from their hometown. Until now, relationships tended to be severed when people left their hometowns.

――The term “becoming a hub” is often used to describe initiatives related to the region, but Dot Doto is breaking it down to the smallest administrative work unit and implementing it.

Nakanishi：I think the structure of these efforts was such that in the end, the people who would become the hub had no choice but to keep working on it. However, we will never reach the ideal that we envision if we are the only ones doing this. However, I believe that if more people with a similar feeling and a sense of ownership in the community take action, the community will steadily change.

Nozawa：When you become a hub, you tend to hold people who are connected to each other. However, I think it is necessary to be aware that the people connected to the hub will go through a variety of experiences and graduate from the hub. The sooner we can reach our ideal, the more people who are working with the same kind of passion will spread beyond our own hands.

From a business point of view, it may be negative to let go of the connections we have made, but I hope we can hold on to them and create a flow of autonomous decentralization of people and activities that think about the East Hokkaido.

――It's like we are growing our own fields, and the saplings that grow there are scattered around the country, so that the number of trees in the satoyama will increase.

Nakanishi：There it is, the Satoyama theory (laughs).

Nozawa：Some of the students who interned at Dot Doto when they were university students spontaneously formed a group in Tokyo called the “Tokyo Doto Club”. Young people from Doto who we didn't even know were getting together. Recently, it seems that a Doto Dotokai has also been established in the Kansai region, and people are inviting others to join them, creating more and more places that are devoted to Doto.

――That's great. Autonomous decentralization indeed.

Nakanishi：It is amazing, isn't it? If it were not for the broad category of “East Hokkaido,” the people gathered there would be from different regions. I think the distance between them would be about the same as “we are all from the same region of Hokkaido. However, whether you are from Kitami or Kushiro, when you look at it from the perspective of “East Hokkaido,” you can see that they are from the same region.
There are a number of layers to which you belong, aren't there? I am a global person, a Japanese person, and a Doutou person. The smaller the unit, the stronger your sense of belonging becomes. Then, their actions will reflect that, such as “I want to buy foods from Doto if I have to,” or “It's a job in Kitami, so I want to ask someone from Kitami to do it.

――So, I guess I would say that the East Hokkaido is a unit that is neither too big nor too small in terms of the awareness of the parties involved.

Nakanishi：This may be a bit forward, but I think one of our achievements is that more and more people are using the word “Doto” as their own. Until now, it was just a unit that delimited a region, and it was impossible to get emotionally involved in the region. I think that the Dot-Doto activities have helped to create an identity for the Dot-Doto region.