[Faculty of Modern Social Studies] Runner-up in SDGs Future Business Student Contest!

On September 13th, the "SDGs Future Business Student Contest 2024" sponsored by the "University Ecosystem Hyogo SDGs Open Innovation" was held at hoops link kobe (2nd floor of the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Sales Department, Chuo-ku, Kobe City), and Hironari Araki, Rei Tatsumi, and Mari Nagaizumi (all third-year students) from the seminar of Associate Professor Takao Sakakura of the Department of Contemporary Faculty of Modern Social Studies participated in the "Corporate Issues Division". They won the runner-up prize!

In a contest for students to create SDG business ideas, held in conjunction with the Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025, a milestone toward achieving the SDGs in 2030, our university worked with students from Kyoritsu Women's University on the task presented by Scaleout Inc., "Using the African country of Nigeria as a model, we propose a new business that will be a win-win situation for developing and developed countries to cooperate and utilize the latest information intelligence technologies such as AI and robotics." Applications were submitted in mid-June, and the company (Scaleout Inc.) and team (our university and Kyoritsu Women's University) were selected in early July. After that, online meetings were held for about two months until the actual event. Meeting many people that we would not normally meet, working on solving problems together with companies, and listening to presentations from other teams all seemed to be fresh and stimulating experiences.

"The way we spent our summer vacation was very different from previous years," Araki recalled. The three worked on this project in parallel with job hunting (participating in internships) and part-time jobs. The runner-up award was also a moment that rewarded all those days, with the students saying, "It was really busy, but I'm really glad we worked together and worked hard!"

"The company created an environment that made it easy to communicate, so I was able to open up to them. I'm very grateful that we were able to get off to a good start. I was also very influenced by the members from Kyoritsu Women's University, and my perspective changed a lot. They gave me immediate feedback to my questions, and their opinions were stimulating. I discovered that I was now able to analyze myself objectively," said Tatsumi. Nagaizumi, who was not in charge of the presentation this time, said, "Watching everyone's presentations (including the other teams) was stimulating. I was inspired and thought I wanted to give it a try too! I was mainly in charge of research this time, and I realized that I am good at investigating in depth, which became my strength." Araki said, "I wanted to convey my thoughts in a realistic way, so even though I'm not good at English, I struggled to interview Nigerians. I realized that I had a strong desire to contribute to the lives of the residents, and I decided that I wanted to do that kind of work as my future goal." It seems that the program was a good opportunity for all three of them to gain new realizations.

We would like to thank everyone at Scale Out Co., Ltd. who guided our students and everyone at Kyoritsu Women's University who worked with them. We look forward to seeing the students' success in the future.

(Source: School Public Relations)