はじめに
僕が人生において大切にしてきたことの一つは、座学や知識の吸収を中心とするインプットに加えて、インプットを社会の中で実装し、社会課題の解決に活かすためのアウトプットです。分野、規模、そして関わる人々の種類が全く異なる社会課題解決に向けたプロジェクトの創出と実行を通して、僕が「プロジェクト」そのものに対して考えていることもまた、日々刻々と変化しています。このページでは、これまで少しずつ積み上げてきたプロジェクトのうち、特に代表的なものについて、自分の内省・思考の変化と共に記録します。
Secretariat, Odate municipal government (Internship)
2017.8 - 2019.3
Through my experience in Odate City, I became interested in the different ways of living as activities of people who have different living foundations within the same society.
The project I was involved in was part of the UWC curriculum called Project Week, which we planned ourselves. Therefore, there was a compulsory aspect to the creation of the project, which strictly speaking, wasn’t entirely voluntary… On the other hand, during my year-long volunteer work with an NPO in Singapore, I realized that the foundation of ‘living’ is not something to be taken for granted and is often conveniently hidden in society. I began to believe that this is not only true in Singapore but also in Malaysia and Japan, where I used to live. From this time, I started to think about what is really visible or invisible to us in society.
After finishing my volunteer work, spending a week living with local children in a less privileged area in Malaysia made me acutely aware of how I had grown up blindly receiving benefits in a privileged environment. At the same time, it also led me to critically consider the nature of volunteer tourism and volunteering in general, particularly the way all activities with a social aspect, including volunteering, are being used for creating credentials as ‘social contribution activities.
Founder/Chair, WEIN STUDENTS SUMMIT・WEIN STUDENTS
2020.8 - 2021.1
My experience in launching a student organization at WEIN and organizing a student conference had a significant impact on me, particularly in terms of initiating a project with a large social impact. A positive aspect was that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people’s connections with society were becoming more tenuous and the sense of belonging somewhere was fading, we were able to create a place online where students could feel they belonged again, using emerging online technologies like Zoom. Moreover, this place became a base for members to launch various independent projects such as ‘Online Open Campuses’, initiating movements to provide opportunities to a wider range of people than I initially imagined, which I believe was proof of our unified intention to improve the society we live in. Thus, the student organization, where many people were conscious of and acted towards bettering society, became an organization that has already produced more than five entrepreneurs, effectively having the foundation of an accelerator program.
On the other hand, personally, it was also an experience that made me acutely aware of the difficulties in executing programs aimed at solving social issues. While I have fond memories of successfully hosting large-scale, impactful events and creating an ongoing organization, I also felt the increasing difficulty in dealing with stakeholders as the organization grew. Even though I had ideas I wanted to realize, bending my values to achieve business success in coordination with stakeholders was a shortcoming and a sign of my inadequacy at the time. Additionally, valued members leaving the organization due to differences in direction was a trigger for me to reexamine how I interact with people. In particular, even as a vision-type leader, the way I merely evoked empathy and ‘used’ it to achieve goals was a sign of my immaturity as a leader. From this experience, I started to focus more on the nature of ’empathy’ in the execution phase of projects and the finer details of how to hold and convey a vision for the remainder of my college life.
Founder/Chair, Social Science Boot Camp
2022.9 - PRESENT
After my experience at WEIN, I explored the nature of empathy and vision through projects during my university life. However, the projects I initiated in my second and third years of college did not scale up and led to a period of struggle. In summary, the biggest failure factor was that I ended up creating half-hearted projects as a result of avoiding to just evoke people’s empathy with pleasant-sounding words while pursuing the realization of a vision.
The culmination of my university life was the Social Science Boot Camp. Currently, about 70% of students at Hitotsubashi University, where I belong, are from the metropolitan area, and there are limited students from other regions. Additionally, the gender balance is also an issue, with a 7:3 male-to-female ratio. Despite these problems, I had been creating many projects outside the university and wanted to contribute something to the university before graduation. This desire, along with my previous successes and failures, led me to initiate my final project in the university. The Social Science Boot Camp, particularly aimed at students from regional areas, was launched as a project to deliver the excitement of social sciences for free.
Together with volunteers from my seminar, Akiyama Seminar, which is focused on international relations, we brainstormed and officially launched the Social Science Boot Camp in December. To ensure that the information reached students in regional areas, we used our networks and directly promoted it to schools, including friends’ alma maters. We reached out to 160 high schools, successfully delivering information to approximately 70,000 high school students. Initially, we expected 15-20 participants, but ended up receiving nearly 100 applications, making the selection process challenging.
The success of this project was undoubtedly due to the dedication and initiative of the seminar students. From choosing reference materials for high school students to read, to developing selection criteria for the boot camp and establishing a publicity policy, everyone determined and executed policies, regardless of their experience. A key focus for me was implementing crowdfunding. Financial barriers are one of the main reasons why students from regional areas give up coming to Tokyo. I firmly believed that it was unacceptable for financial issues to hinder access to education for those who desire it, so I committed to realizing crowdfunding and achieving its financial goals.
The concept of ’empathy’ again became a barrier and a key to this project. It’s easy to evoke empathy by projecting oneself in an ideal way and anticipating words that resonate with people. However, this would only repeat the superficial and business-like empathy of my freshman year. Therefore, this time, I particularly focused on refining the vision for the project and promoting it with a commitment to lead from the front. As a result, empathy for the project emerged naturally from people, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing supporters without relying on marketing logic I considered useful. The lesson I learned from this experience is that when something truly benefits society and its feasibility is believable to people, it can naturally evoke empathy. This doesn’t mean neglecting to deliver information about the project (or product) but thoroughly refining it and considering who it benefits and what kind of world it aims to create. As a result, the information becomes more accessible to people, evoking their empathy. On the other hand, personally, it was also an experience that made me acutely aware of the difficulties in executing programs aimed at solving social issues. While I have fond memories of successfully hosting large-scale, impactful events and creating an ongoing organization, I also felt the increasing difficulty in dealing with stakeholders as the organization grew. Even though I had ideas I wanted to realize, bending my values to achieve business success in coordination with stakeholders was a shortcoming and a sign of my inadequacy at the time. Additionally, valued members leaving the organization due to differences in direction was a trigger for me to reexamine how I interact with people. In particular, even as a vision-type leader, the way I merely evoked empathy and ‘used’ it to achieve goals was a sign of my immaturity as a leader. From this experience, I started to focus more on the nature of ’empathy’ in the execution phase of projects and the finer details of how to hold and convey a vision for the remainder of my college life.