NoMaps 2026
Overview
A city-wide festival across central Sapporo spanning conferences, exhibitions, music, and film. Modeled after SXSW and launched in 2016, the 2025 edition drew a cumulative 58,000 participants across 86 venues and 294 programs. A hub event of Hokkaido's startup ecosystem where entrepreneurs, creators, students, and local governments mix.
Foundation
- Founded
- 2016
- Founder
- NoMaps Executive Committee
Launched in 2016 through public-private-academic collaboration, with roots in the Sapporo International Short Film Festival
Transition
- 2016 Full launch after a preliminary edition
- 2025 10th year. 86 venues and 294 programs, with a cumulative 58,239 participants
- 2026 Held September 23-27. Expansion beyond Sapporo begins with editions such as NoMaps Ibaraki in Kashima, Ibaraki
In the News
AI Expo Summer 2026
The summer edition of the AI-focused exhibition hosted by AIsmiley, operator of Japan's AI portal media. Over 100 companies present 200+ AI solutions alongside 40+ conference sessions. Following the Spring 2026 edition at Tokyo International Forum, it moves to Sankaku Hiroba at the Shinjuku Sumitomo Building. Free to attend, it serves companies comparing generative AI and AI agent products.
Innovation Japan 2026 (University Trade Fair)
Japan's largest university-industry matching event, hosted by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Patented technology seeds from universities nationwide are exhibited for matching with corporate R&D and new business teams. The 2025 edition drew about 14,000 visitors to 291 exhibited seeds. Less a startup conference and more a trade fair that seeds technology transfer and joint research.
Open Developers Conference 2026
A developer-focused open source conference run by the OSPN community behind the Open Source Conference (OSC) series. Billed as an "open source culture festival," it packs seminars, hands-on sessions, and community booths on DevOps, dev tools, and cloud into a single free day. Modest in size at 100-plus attendees, its strength since 2018 has been direct access to the developers behind OSS projects.