ANA Attends Tokyo Innovation Summer Program Again!
ANA participated in the University of Tokyo i.school’s Tokyo Innovation Summer Program (TiSP) once again this year. This is the third year that ANA has supported this program.
A total of nine ANA employees participated this year, and split up between the Miyazaki group and Kagawa group. Let’s take a look into the Miyazaki program!
Seven university students from Tokyo, seven foreign university students, and 25 Miyazaki high school students were divided into five teams, and over a course of five days, worked tirelessly together to come up with unique and creative ideas to help local businesses thrive. The high school students were generally required to speak in English throughout the program, and the university students from Tokyo were there to facilitate and help communicate with the foreign university students.
The first two days consisted of fieldwork, where students visited five local businesses, including a cabbage farm, shochu (Japanese spirit) distillery, green tea farm, Ishii Kinen Yuaisha Social Welfare Corp., and the Takanabe Castle ruins and Maizuru Park, to gather information and learn about each of its background stories of struggle and success.
The students then sat down with their teams and each group was assigned to one of the fieldwork locations. They discussed the information they gathered and extracted an attractive story. From there, each team came up with unique products and services to help revitalize the local areas.
The growth of the high school students throughout the five day program was remarkable. The majority of them started off being relatively shy and unsure of how to express themselves in English, but by the end of the program they could be seen in a more relaxed state and joking around with the university students.
On the final day of the program, special guests from the Miyazaki board of education and local businesses came for the student presentations, including ANA Miyazaki branch manager Akihiko Fuchigami, a Miyazaki Omiya High School alumni. Each group made their presentations, including a skit of their products and services, all in English!
ANA will continue to promote the local charms of Japan and encourage visitors to venture out to the lesser known regional areas to witness and experience heartwarming hospitality and all the local specialties it has to offer.
To read about last year’s program, click below:
https://www.ana.co.jp/ana_news/en/2017/08/18/20170818-1.html
