The InnerSource Special Meetup Tokyo 2025 was held on April 25 to mark a truly memorable occasion: the visit of Danese Cooper, the founder of the InnerSource Commons Foundation and a globally renowned advocate for open source and open collaboration. The gathering brought together Japanese InnerSource practitioners and community supporters for an evening of knowledge exchange, inspiration, and connection.
Welcome Address
The evening began with a welcome address from Yuki Hattori, the President of the InnerSource Commons Foundation, introducing the mission of the InnerSource Commons Foundation and its growing presence in Japan. The energy in the room reflected the community’s enthusiasm for building collaborative engineering cultures across organizational boundaries.
Special Sessions
One of the key sessions featured Kenji Hiramoto, Director General of DISC at Japan’s Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), who shared perspectives on Japan’s open source landscape and digital policy trends. The slide deck is available here.
Sponsor Spotlight
This was followed by a sponsor spotlight session from NIFTY Corporation, where Ryo Ashikawa presented an engaging overview of their InnerSource journey and the lessons learned from fostering cross-team collaboration within a traditional enterprise environment. The slide deck is available here.
Panel Talk with Danese Cooper
The highlight of the night was the special panel talk session with Danese Cooper. Speaking candidly and passionately, she traced the origin of the InnerSource movement, its evolution over two decades, and its growing significance in the era of AI and distributed development. Moderated by Yuki Hattori, the president of the Foundation, the conversation underscored the importance of InnerSource in transforming internal development practices and cultivating a healthier, more sustainable engineering culture.
The event concluded with an interactive Q&A session and a lively networking reception, where participants shared ideas, sparked new collaborations, and deepened their connection to the global InnerSource community.
Community
Hosted at the Microsoft Japan headquarters in Shinagawa, the meetup was held to foster intimate and meaningful dialogue with Danese and fellow community members.
Thanks to the support of our sponsors and speakers—and to all who participated—this special edition meetup affirmed the continued momentum of InnerSource in Japan.
Yuki Hatotri
President, InnerSource Commons Foundation