TOMODACHI Social Entrepreneurship Award Given to Dreampharos at the University Venture Grand Prix Competition Hosted by METI

On December 20, 2014, the University Venture Grand Prix competition hosted by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and held at the Tokyo Stock Exchange awarded the TOMODACHI Social Entrepreneurship Award to Dreampharos from JAIST (Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology). The competition is supported by the Tokyo New Business Conference and Nomura Research Institute, and welcomed a guest judge for the Social Entrepreneurship Award – Haruo Miyagi of ETIC.

The three winning groups (the UVGP grand prize, the Teacher’s Award, and the TOMODACHI Award) will be headed to Silicon Valley, California in March 2015 to meet with various influential venture capitalists, local startups, big corporations, nonprofits, and fellow student entrepreneurs.

This year close to 70 groups from undergraduate and graduate schools across Japan had applied, and the top nine groups were selected as finalists to present their ideas to a panel of judges comprised of teachers, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and a nonprofit leader.

• To read more about this program, click here

Team DREAMPHAROS from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) developed an interactive communication service called “Yume-chou” that preschools can use to communicate with parents.  Currently most schools use paper-based notebooks called “Renraku-chou” to send daily updates, but this project aims to position Yume-chou as a digital Ranraku-chou, thereby creating a more efficient communication channel for childcare.  Yume-choe is based on cloud computing technology and can support real-time communication between parents and school officials. The team plans to establish operations in Komatsu City, Japan beginning April 2015.