TechXplore - Season 1

Today, one of the best ways to understand any country is through its latest innovation. BBC tech reporter Paul Carter is on a mission: to explore destinations across the globe, hunting down their cutting-edge tech and the people who are creating it. Paul starts by exploring some of the latest technology in Japan, a country long renowned as a leader in the tech world. Starting in Tokyo he visits a cafe whose disabled workers, unable to leave their homes, serve customers remotely from hundreds of miles away using robots and telepresence. He also gets a workout in the city's first e-sports gym. The professional coaches say it takes a hundred hours to get to even a basic level but even in a short time they help Paul sharpen his skills. Paul discovers how tech is revolutionising Japan's world-famous food sector; he travels to the South coast to investigate the story behind a start-up aiming to make shrimp farming sustainable, before continuing westwards to rural Hyogo, to the home of the prized Kobe beef. On a famous Japanese cattle farm, Paul tries his hand at some of the age-old cattle-rearing techniques which go into the production of wagyu beef and then visits Osaka University, where scientists are trying to recreate lab-grown wagyu in petri dishes: Paul wonders whether lab-grown "tech" meat can really compete with the real thing?
Finally, Paul finishes his journey at Japan's most sacred mountain - Mount Fuji - where artificial intelligence is being used to help predict rockslides and protect visitors to this stunning volcanic landscape. Join Paul on his tech journey as he techXplores Japan.

TechXplore travels the world to see destinations through the prism of technology and to meet the people at the front line of innovation. This time, tech-loving traveller Paul Carter explores Japan to find out how the drive to become more sustainable is leading to some exciting world-leading developments there - from underwater drones servicing offshore wind farms to discarded sea pineapple shells being used to generate electricity. Also, Paul meets fashion influencer and J-Pop icon Manon, and faces up to his fear of spiders to discover how one startup is taking inspiration from nature to help fashion to become more sustainable in the future.

In TechXplore, we visit a country to see it through the prism of technology and innovation. This time, tech-loving traveller Paul Carter is in Japan looking at how the drive to become more sustainable is leading to exciting developments in the country - from hydrogen powered cities and radical new concepts for solar power at sea to the next generation of robotic farms, designed to grow food hyper-efficiently.