Social Contributions

In December 2024, Iwaki R&D Center arranged an organic cotton picking, ginning (seed removal), and spinning experience at a local farm for 27 participants, including employees and their families.
The area of idle farmland and abandoned fields keeps growing due to ongoing harmful rumors following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as well as a shortage of successors. The Organic Cotton Project seeks to make use of such land to organically grow and harvest cotton, which is then commercialized and sold, returning profits to growers. Alps Alpine participates in the project as it is sympathetic to the cause.

Alps Electric Korea jointly sponsored the 1st Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) Science Imagination Children’s Art Contest, held in May 2024. The aim was to support local development in Gwangju Metropolitan City, where the company has an office. Around 400 children took part, livening up the region by letting their imaginations run wild on paper with creations under the theme “Drawing the Future.” Alps Electric Korea will continue to join the community to support the development of generations that will shape the future.

In December 2024, 12 employees from the Sendai R&D Center (Furukawa) cleaned wheelchairs for a nearby elderly care home. The participants commented on the satisfaction they gained from seeing the joy of people at the care home and their pleasure in helping the community.

Alps Alpine held community cleanup events at many business locations, including Head Office in Tokyo, Kakuda Plant, and Sendai R&D Center (Furukawa). Embracing the idea of expressing appreciation to the community, employees focused on cleaning up areas around roads, stations and other facilities they routinely use in the vicinity of their workplaces. Employees said they were pleased to be able to contribute to the community so the company could fulfill its social responsibility. Cleanup efforts are regularly undertaken overseas, too. Alps Alpine will persist with these efforts as we value our ties to the community.

Alps Alpine’s Head Office in Tokyo regularly hosts Ota Monozukuri Science School workshops with employees as instructors. The program supports the aims of Ota-ku, an area of Tokyo with an established manufacturing industry, to develop young talent and has been run on a regular basis with Head Office employees as instructors since November 2003. So far 3,113 people have participated in a total of 200 workshops.
In January 2025, Alps Alpine received a certificate of appreciation for the longstanding activity from the Ota City Board of Education.

In March 2025, the Nagaoka R&D Center opened a stall at the Nagaoka Monozukuri Fair 2025, an event letting local children and their parents or caregivers encounter products and technologies of local companies, and experience the joys of making things. In a special area, center personnel helped visitors make a radio.

Sendai R&D Center (Furukawa) is carrying out greening activity on company premises, primarily using native plant species. The center also collects rainwater and uses it to water plants on site.

Alps Electric Ireland grows wildflowers on company premises. This supports biodiversity by providing an ideal environment for living things in the area, such as birds, butterflies, and bees.

Since 2017, Taira Plant, Onahama Plant and Iwaki R&D Center have teamed up to protect katakuri (Erythronium japonicum), an endangered plant species growing naturally on Taira Plant premises. By improving exposure to sunlight, cutting away bamboo grass and pteridophytes, the plants gradually grew and increased in number. Katakuri is special to the local community as a Japanese plant that has always grown naturally in community woodlands. We will continue to watch over the plants.

As part of efforts to eliminate disposal of waste in landfills, Alcom Electronicos de Mexico (Mexico) composts food scraps from the company cafeteria, turning into fertilizer for use on local farms.

Dongguan Alps Electronics (China) held an event in May 2024 to mark International Day for Biological Diversity. Through an environment-themed quiz, the company sought to raise employee awareness about biodiversity conservation.

Alps Alpine is one of four primary members of the Consortium for Advanced Assistive Mobility Platform (CAAMP) alongside Omron Corporation, Shimizu Corporation and IBM Japan. CAAMP has developed a new model of its AI Suitcase, a navigation robot for the visually impaired. The revamped design incorporates features such as a new wheel mechanism and additional sensors.
The AI Suitcase is a suitcase robot that provides autonomous guidance to people with visual impairments, directing them to their destination. Alps Alpine provides technology for a disk-shaped direction indicator embedded in the handle that intuitively conveys the robot’s direction of travel to the user. The aim of this tactile interface is to give users reassurance as they move around.
Several AI Suitcases were simultaneously deployed over an extended period in real-world demonstration testing at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan. Results from the demonstration will be used to identify and evaluate outstanding technical and operational issues that need to be resolved prior to social implementation.

Alps Alpine has developed a “Low-Vision Hat” hat for the visually impaired that uses vibration to tell the wearer their compass bearing and warn them of obstacles. A vibration device and sensors inside the hat support compass and obstacle detection functions to aid the visually impaired when they are outdoors.
The compass function uses vibration to tell the user when they are facing north. This is based on values from a geomagnetic sensor. For people with a narrow field of vision who are unable to follow indicators on a map app, this helps them with orientation difficulties.
The obstacle detection function uses vibration to warn the wearer when an obstacle is detected at head height. A cane may be able to tell a person about obstacles on the ground, but signs or tree branches at head height can sometimes go unnoticed. When the user comes within one meter of an obstacle, the hat vibrates, helping to prevent a collision.
The development and improvement process continues. For example, we are trying to reduce the size of the technology to enable use inside any kind of hat.