Nick Barua: Creating Opportunities through Innovation

Nick Barua is an award-winning entrepreneur, business executive, and physicist with a proven History of working in the tech industry. Nick is the current COO and head of management of Swift-Xi Inc., a Japanese joint venture company between Swift Engineering Inc. and Kobe Institute of Computing, providing provides consulting, training, Data analysis, and IT services for Full-service operations of autonomous and robotic technologies in Japan and worldwide.

After earning his BSc degree in Physics from Yale University, Nick pursued MSc in Astrophysics from Caltech and joined Johnson Space Center as a Physicist. Nick presently lives in Japan and holds several executive positions in the Aerospace, Educational, and Telemedicine industries. He is the founder and CEO of AN Inc., an Investment-Consulting firm that serves businesses, governments, non-profits, non-governmental, and engineering organizations. Nick is also the Executive Board Member of T-ICU Co., Ltd, a Japanese start-up with a team of Intensive Care Specialists, which provides medical support to doctors remotely, especially for the Intensive Care Unit. He also holds quite a few visiting professor roles in universities like the Shiga University of Medical Science, Kobe Gakuin University, the University of Science & Technology Chattogram (USTC), and Marine City Medical College(MCMC).

About Swift-Xi Inc.

Swift-Xi is a Japanese subsidiary of its parent company Swift Engineering, a Spacecraft Engineering company based in San Clemente, California, with over four decades of experience in solving complex problems for sophisticated clients, which joint ventured with Kobe Institute of Computing (KIC), which introduces a program to produce ‘work-ready’ professional IT personnel who, regardless of their previous field of education or previous work experience, will be prepared for professional roles in the IT industry at Kobe, Japan, in 2018. The Chairman of the board and CEO is Hiro Matsushita, a former racecar driver, the first Japanese to participate in the Indy Car Series, and the grandson of Panasonic’s founder Konosuke Matsushita. On the other hand, Kenji Fukuoka, the active President of the Kobe Institute of Computing, is the board director of Swift-Xi Inc.

Swift is one of the leading designers, developers, and manufacturers of unmanned systems, helicopters, spacecraft, submarines, robotics, and advanced composites for military and commercial applications. It is globally recognized for creating high-impact solutions. The team’s passion and talents continue to fuel the next generation of intelligent systems and advanced vehicles, making Swift a dominant force across numerous industries.

“What makes our team in Japan elite is having both Prior service U.S. military combat veterans and Japanese military staff together. It allows bringing real-life situations and experiences into consideration. When making proposals, we are a boots-on-ground team seeking to constantly implement ways to change the vision” said Nick.

Overcoming Hurdles

During the pandemic, Nick and his team at Swift-Xi took their time to focus on the market, most importantly, brainstorm how to bring their ideas to the forefront of the industry. The team successfully created new opportunities within Japan and abroad that are being implemented in alliance with Swift’s business motto. Even though meeting in person could not happen, Nick and his team were able to overcome this hurdle with the ability to create new relationships remotely, which opened up several new roads of opportunities.

Looking at the Future

Recently, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development selected Swift-Xi Organization (NEDO), Japan’s largest research and development company, in a “Digital Infrastructure Development Project for Digital Transformation of Industries: Research and development on 3D spatial information infrastructures.”; Additionally, the Swift Group will advise, fly and make UAV flight routes under the guidelines of the flight risk management systems. Thus enabling endless possibilities to change the mindset of used cases throughout Japan like never done before alongside some leading Japanese companies.

“Our team is certainly looking to further our development stages with the NEDO project. A first of its kind for Japan, with expectations that other countries can utilize and follow suit. Along with foreign and domestic projects currently blossoming throughout Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Despite our existing market in the US defense ministry in the United States and the Bahamas, we would like our concept to be groundbreaking in Japan. Another priority is an expansion of our subsidiary, International Drone Academy (IDAC), abroad, placing a priority on Crew Resource Management (CRM) throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia,” explained Nick.

“Stay close to people who feel like sunlight”

Advice for Younger Self

Nick has three pieces of advice for new start-up entrepreneurs;

• Be Passionate: New entrepreneurs have to devote a lot of time and energy to starting a business and building it into a successful enterprise, so it is essential that the individuals truly and deeply enjoy what they do.
• Write a Business Plan: The primary reason for doing a business plan first is that it can help new entrepreneurs avoid sinking their time and money into starting a business that will fail.
• Be Professional: Everything about an entrepreneur and how he/she operates a business needs to let people know that he/she is a professional running a serious business. That means getting all the accouterments, such as professional business cards, a business phone, and a business email address, and treating people professionally and courteously.