TOMODACHI Boeing Keio SFC Entrepreneurship Seminar U.S. Training Program
From July 30 to August 4, 2023, the “TOMODACHI Boeing Keio SFC Entrepreneurship Seminar” training program in the United States was held on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.
The program began in November 2022 and ran for eight months until June 2023. Thirty high school and university students from all over Japan participated in the program. Students who volunteered to be project initiators presented their ideas to the participants, and those who agreed with their ideas joined as project members to work on the proposals to solve social issues through the program. In the seminar, the students acquired the necessary ideas and skills to realize their action plans.
At the final reporting held in June, each team made a presentation, and five participants to go to the U.S. study tour were selected based on an overall judgment of four criteria set by the program, in addition to the sustainability of the venture and whether it is a project that a public would like to support.
The U.S. study tour was conducted with the theme of “wellbeing,” which has been an important theme of the program, and was intended to provide hints for the development of their projects that each of the participants had been working on. In the morning, participants completed their own tasks such as meditation, then worked on the up-to-the-minute curriculum, had nightly reflections and discussions. (After reflecting on their own issues, by meditating in the morning, the participants followed the minute-by-minute curriculum and had nightly reflections and discussions.) They were eager, motivated, and hungry for learning that they competed for a passenger seat when riding a Uber so that they can hear from the driver about his experiences and the situation in Hawaii.
On July 31, 2023, Nori Tarui, Professor of Economics, College of Social Sciences, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Ulla Hasager, Director of Civic Engagement, College of Social Sciences, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa welcomed the students for a campus tour and a workshop. Mr. Tarui said “We are extremely happy to host the TOMODACHI students for two years in a row!” and “Japan and Hawaiʻi share many sustainability challenges such as rising sea level and clean energy transitions. We hope the students will have insights on their projects through their visit in the State.”
As reflecting the program, one of the participants, Ms. Tokiwa Yasuda said, “I learned that the different ways of thinking and values can overlap and link each other. Moreover, Mami Furukawa, social business entrepreneur in Hawaii, taught us ‘alamaaina’ (if you love the land, the land will love you). Professor Campos, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, also said that it is more important for tourists to appreciate and live together with the resort than for the resort to create things for tourists, and I felt that these are exactly the same things. I believe that the importance of connecting the lessons learned from this day’s experience will be directly relevant to my own project. Even though things may seem different, they can be great clues, and sometimes they can be the answer. I would like to continue to work on the project, always looking for similarities. I think I was able to feel the analogy that I have learned in the seminar today.”
