Kohei Nishiyama
Kohei Nishiyama (born 1970 in Hyogo Pref., Japan) is a founder of CUUSOO.com, an online user community that collects WISHES from people. He matches most desired wishes to manufactures to make them come true. Since 1997, sixty wishes have been realized both in products and services. Currently 140,000 users, 3,000 designers and 500 manufactures participate in this platform. CUUSOO is used in universities as official curriculum and more than thousand students have benefited from this entrepreneurial educational experience.
Prior to founding CUUSOO.com and elephant design, Kohei was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he primarily handled new product development projects.
He is a Recipient of the Kuwasawa Design Award (2001) and the Japanese government’s Good Design Award (2001).
He has been a judge on the Good Design Award committee in the New Frontier Category since 2002, and is also a member of the Innovators Network, Japan Society. He was selected as a member of the Young Global Leaders (YGL) in 2007 and also of the Global Agenda Council (GAC) in 2008, both by the World Economic Forum. He was also selected as a Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company in 2009. He is a member of The International Selection Committee for the 2014 designation of World Design Capital (WDC), and also became a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in 2011.
He holds BA from the University of Tokyo and majored in product design at the Kuwasawa Design Institute
Organization
- Founder and Chairman, elephant design co., ltd.
- Founder of CUUSOO.com (online user innovation community)
- Co-founder of Open Hippel (NPO, open platform to promote user innovation)
- Co-founder of Student Innovation College (NPO, entrepreneurship education)
- Good Design Award Committee Member (Japanese National Design Award)
- Young Global Leaders (World Economic Forum)