Our guest today is Oka Yuki,

who's making rehabilitation programs more playful by introducing the element of entertainment.

His NPO has developed a "Digital Interactive Rehabilitation System" for children with disabilities.

The sessions involve playing around with digital art.

Rehabilitation can be monotonous and painful, making children reluctant to try.

But turning the experience into a game gets them more engaged.

Kids can reach out their arms, or they can track objects with their eyes.

They can make some small movements.

They're able to do things they usually can't do.

That brings me great joy.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are some 2.4 billion people around the world in need of rehabilitation.

By making the challenging rehab process more enjoyable,

Oka hopes that more people will want to receive treatment.

We ask him about his work.

The idea for our system developed because

the child of one of my staff was undergoing rehabilitation.

They showed me video and I could see the kid was upset and crying.

My nonprofit does projects that combine medical services with entertainment.

We thought if we could combine rehab with entertainment and make it fun,

we could bring a smile to the kid's face.

That's how it started.

Oka's gamified digital rehab system has dozens of apps designed for children

with different impairments and degrees of disability.

This one displays a variety of digital objects on a large screen,

such as a whale, jellyfish, and a killer whale.

When a child touches an object, it reacts.

There's a sensor above the screen that detects what's being gestured at.

This activity is meant to help children

with a physical impairment move parts of their body they don't use regularly.

Other exercises involve wearing a sensor on the hands or feet.

In one app, the child is rewarded with a shower of shiny jewels

each time they move the body part in question.

They can see how many repetitions they can do within the allotted time.

Here is a sensor that detects hand movements.

It allows the child to play with objects on a computer screen by moving around their hand.

Another app uses a sensor to track eye movements.

The child can interact with various elements on screen through their gaze.

Our digital rehab system is about turning something tedious into something you want to do...

the entertainment factor.

Also, the system is interactive.

The user can engage with what's going on and move objects in a way

that helps them feel like they're actually doing it themselves.

That's another important feature.

The app settings can be changed depending on the child's condition or their preferences.

You can change how responsive the sensors are, or swap digital objects.

And depending on the limitations of their brain function,

you can adjust the position where objects appear.

You want to find the settings that give you optimum engagement and enjoyment for each child.

And so, our programs are designed to be fully customized on site.

Oka's digital rehab system is now being used in 77 locations throughout Japan...

including hospitals, schools for special needs education,

and afterschool support facilities for children with disabilities.

It's been developed in partnership with universities, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers,

with input from pediatricians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and more.

Here's a physical therapist who's currently using the system with patients.

It draws out children's latent ability to move their body.

A kid who has trouble lifting their arm

is suddenly able to raise it up high.

Digital rehab gets them excited, which gets their body moving.

Here's a boy who's doing eye tracking exercises.

We speak with his mother.

It's fun for him.

It turns this challenging thing

from a rough experience into something closer to a game.

I'm grateful for that.

Oka says there's something he makes sure to keep in mind when developing digital rehab apps.

Disability or not, everyone has things they're unable to do.

But kids with disabilities often grow up being told repeatedly that they can't do things.

I want to make it so that while they play these digital rehab games,

they get to experience being able to do things.

So let's say they aren't able to do a certain task on an app.

We don't display any notifications that say they've failed.

Instead, we design it so they're encouraged to try again.

Oka has made rehabilitation fun and engaging by gamifying the process.

But how did he find himself on this path?

Oka grew up loving music from a young age.

In college, he started DJing and performing using various indigenous instruments from around the world.

Eventually, he grew more interested in organizing music events featuring a variety of musicians.

Then in his third year of college, personal tragedy changed the course of his life.

His beloved mother was suddenly hospitalized, and passed away soon after.

She'd been hiding the fact that she had cancer from her family.

My mother died of cancer at a time when I was completely focused on my events.

She was in the hospital for about six months before she passed.

No one in the family even knew she had cancer until the day she said she was being hospitalized.

It was a huge shock.

You can think, if only I had more knowledge, if only things were different... but it was too late.

So how could I save others from regret?

I thought that information on medical care and welfare...

needed to get out to people in a more easy-to-understand way.

The death of his mother was the catalyst for Oka to become interested in medicine and welfare.

He started working part-time to support people with disabilities.

Over time, he came to feel strongly about the need to educate people

about medical welfare in an informal way.

So he established a nonprofit organization.

He named it Ubdobe, a word inspired by the sound of his chosen instrument, the didgeridoo.

Ubdobe's mission is to combine medical welfare services with entertainment.

The first thing Oka and his team did was organize a music festival

aimed at raising awareness about illnesses and disabilities in a casual atmosphere.

It was held at venues and clubs in central Tokyo.

In-between performances by leading musicians, people with disabilities,

medical welfare workers, researchers, and others took to the stage to give talks and show informational videos.

Our "Social Funk" festival was not a welfare event.

Rather, it was a club event with info on medical and welfare issues woven throughout.

So we always made sure the lineup and attractions were enough to satisfy even the club-going crowd.

I remember one time this guy on his way out was saying,

"First thing I'm gonna do when I get home is give my mom a call." As he was leaving.

He had this really intimidating appearance, with tattoos all over his body and a mohawk.

At first glance, you would've assumed that was the furthest thing from his mind,

but our event put him in that headspace.

That's always stuck with me.

The music event, which was supported by Japan's welfare ministry,

came to a close during the coronavirus pandemic.

Other projects include helping disabled people become more active in society...

as well as helping students studying welfare find employment after graduation.

Their digital rehab business, which started in 2017,

was named the overall winner at the 2023 Keio Healthcare Venture Contest,

attracting widespread interest.

Now Oka and his team are working to take their digital rehab system overseas.

On this day, they're talking about plans to expand into India.

Joining in remotely is a recently hired local employee.

In terms of localizing the app, what should we keep in mind?

Can we have animals like cows and monkeys appear?

In India, the cow is a sacred animal that a deity rides around on.

So we have to be careful.

Many people could take issue.

We decided on India partly because it has the largest population in the world,

but also because, despite all the hospitals, remote villages don't have access to medical services and rehabilitation.

We thought our digital rehab system could be used to help people with disabilities and elderly people

in both urban centers as well as rural areas.

So we decided to roll it out.

In April 2024, they introduced their system on a trial basis at several facilities in India.

This rehab clinic, located in the city of Pune in western India, is one of them.

It's using digital rehabilitation not only for children, but also for adults.

This man has been diagnosed with autism.

He definitely enjoyed the tool, using all the sensors.

I'm really very happy, I like the tools.

All five devices are very good.

For Oka and his colleagues, India is just the beginning.

They hope to bring their system to countries around the world, including the U.S.

In the long term, Oka hopes to free people around the world from the stresses of rehabilitation.

We ask him about the kind of world he wants to create through digital rehabilitation.

With digital rehabilitation, my vision for the world isn't anything grand or extraordinary.

I just want to relieve kids with disabilities of these painful experiences.

I want to make it fun for them, and enable them to make lots of friends.

And I want them to participate more in society.

How they learn, eat, play, and work...

I hope to empower them to make their own decisions about things like that.

And I want them to take that forward with them as they live their lives.

"Do you have any words to live by?"

Meaningfulness, business, and fun!

In my work, I seek to balance these three things.

Something can be meaningful and fun, but unless it's a viable business, I can't keep my nonprofit going.

So it's all about balance.