Ouｔline of Yamada Dojo & Dojo Reports（"WHAT'S GOING ON"⇒See the bottom of this page）

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(1)

◆The research paper written by Nakamura (AGL2013) has been posted on "Renewable Energy Global Innovations".

Mr. Shunsuke Nakamura (2013 AGL student) 's research paper "Development of Tar Removal Technologies for Biomass Gasification Using the By-products" has been posted on Bioenergy under an academic website, "Renewable Energy Global Innovations (REGI)". REGI features papers on renewable energy that contain innovative ideas and significant developments in each field. The invited articles are less than 0.1% of the whole published literature. I guess that REGI may evaluate the unique feature of his research; to remove tar by tar itself . Mr. Nakamura said as follows;
"The topic of the paper, biomass gasification, is a new technology considered suitable for the utilization of widely-distributed woody biomass since it allows for small-scale power generation plants. The biggest technical obstacle of biomass gasification is the removal of tar which will cause clogging of pipes and engines. Though a variety of tar removal technologies have been developed until now, most of them are difficult to put into practical use due to high costs. In order to establish a low-cost tar removal system, we evaluated the tar removal performance of the method using by-products, specifically tar and char (gasification residue) for tar removal, since the tar removal by the by-products can be considered the most economical way. The results showed that more than 85% of tar was removed by this method in a pilot-scale facility, and currently, we are conducting commercial-scale experiments for practical applications. The idea "removing tar by tar itself" has been highly appreciated by fellow researchers at both domestic and international conferences." Congratulation, Mr. Nakamura!

REGI opening page: https://reginnovations.org
Paper introduction page: https://reginnovations.org/bioenergy/development-of-tar-removal-technologies-for-biomass-gasification-using-the-by-products/

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(2)

◆Study trip to UK and Germany; 25-30/Sep -Preparation and execution- (Yuri Iguchi, 2014 AGL Student)：

I was selected for the participant of UK-Japan symposium 2015 hold at London and Oxford. This program is a part of Tokyo Institute of Technology International Research Opportunities Program, and it is aimed at facilitating communication mainly among researchers about mechanical and metal material science. I participated the symposium of material science at Oxford University and visiting laboratories in Imperial College London from 20^th-25^th Sept.2015. I got knowledge regarding material science through lectures from Prof. Roger C .Reed and other researchers, presentation and group work with participant from UK, Sweden and 8 TiTech students.
After the workshop, I visited Germany to study the harmonizing of design and function of the daily product in England and Germany from 25^th -30^th Sept.2015. In Museum Angewandte Kunst, specialized in modern product design and has abundant collection of Braun products, I could lean that a lot of trial is lying behind the simple design theory of Braun and it contributes to create the Braun's brand by talking with Prof. Dr. Klaus Klemp and Ms. Julia Schulz. From the interview with Mr.Andreas Maegerlein, team leader of BASF designfabrik in Germany, I was impressed to learn that they are doing an effort to achieve smooth communication with customers and create innovative products with their sophisticated technology and creative designers in designfabrik.
This excursion was realized because I arranged actively such as sending e-mail to the public of Museum Angewandte Kunst calling BASF Japan on visiting designfabrik@Tokyo and asking Mr.Toshifumi Tanakai, exective expert in designfabrik@Tokyo. I deeply appreciate for the kindness from those I met in this excursion.
BASF designfabrik: http://www.designfabrik.basf.de/group/corporate/designfabrik/de/
Museum Angewandte Kunst: http://www.museumangewandtekunst.de/en/

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(3)

◆Planning and running the new business development workshop "Green Startup Tokjyo" by Joju Uechi, 2011 AGL student.：

Mr. Joju Uechi, 2011 AGL student and Department of Environmental Science and Engineering D3, is organizing and running the program, Green Startup Tokyo, for creating new values in environment, energy, agriculture and forestry fields. Twenty participants, including three Tokyo Tech students, joined this workshop from various business sectors and universities. They built five teams based on their business ideas and are working on business developments, such as, new model of PV installation business, new device/service for home energy saving, reduction and effective utilization of food waste, new device for farmers, new service for agricultural land, and so on.
For organizing this program, Mr. Tsutsumi and Mr. Iino of Learning Entrepreneur's Lab Co.,Ltd fully supported and advised form the beginning including planning and giving lectures to the participants.

The feature of this program is to aim to create new values not only for customers but also for environment and society. Therefore, the hurdle for materializing business may be more difficult than usual cases and, in some cases, the business models may be heavily depend on policies or technical innovation. This is first time for lectures to hold such a seminar. So it took longer time for preparation ; designing the program structure and schedule.
Mr. Uechi is engaged in supporting every team by providing some information and their interview with his specialty of knowledge and experiences. Mr. Uechi said "This is a good opportunity for me to rethink about my own green business ideas."

Green Startup Tokyo Web site：http://www.greenstartup.info/

　　　

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(4)

◆Team Mounty (Yoshiki(AGL2013), Anna(AGL2014), Daniel(AGL2013), Ishida (AGL-Hitotsubashi2014), and Jing(Open) ) got the 1st prize in LLP 2015-1H

Lean Launchpad workshop is designed to create business with certain value through iterative assumption validations with customer interviews, and agile "build-and-scrap" of business models.
The 3 month workshop was facilitated by Mr. Tsutsumi and Mr. Iino from Learning Entrepreneurs Lab. Inc.
Every year this workshop requirements and achievements are getting better and better. This year, although challenging-ever tasks, setting Numerical Goals and Financial Plans, were assigned, all the teams this year got customers who said "Ok, I purchase your service/product" and signed a contract.
The winner was team "Mounty": the first-ever team who challenged developing hardware.
They developed health-monitoring device for climbers, and for nursing facilities.

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(5)

◆End of Jul 2015: Programming Bootcamp facilitated by AGL student

"7days Programming Bootcamp: 10000 lines to code" was conducted from 28 Jul. to 3 Aug, 2015.
To exert leadership in any kinds of activities including research, ability to make one's ideas visible and tangible is necessary. To perform it coding is obviously a key tool, and a fundamental literacy in near future.
Thus, in these bootcamp graduate students who don't major software engineering had committed into coding from 9AM to 9PM, 7days in a row, intensively.
Moreover, students visited Mr. Fujikawa (CTO of BASE.Inc.) and gained encouraging advices for coding, and enlightening viewpoints for software engineering.

Highlights of AGL student Activities in 2015　(6)

◆New iOS application, foodcheckerβ, developed by a team of FoodChecker (Mr. Kimura(2012 AGL student), Ms. Yagi(2011 AGL student), Mr. Kawasaki(2012 AGL student) and Ms. Watanabe(2013 AGL student from Hitotsubashi) has been launched in June2015

The team "Food Checker", a winner of 2014 Lean Lauchpad(LLP) , launched their first iOS application into the market as "foodchaeckerβ" from Apple Store in June/2015. This application can help foreign visitors to Japan for their understanding of ingredients written by Japanese sweet stuffs and snacks including candies, chocolate and chips by only scanning the barcode, on their bags.
http://foodchecker-web.sakura.ne.jp/homepage/home.html

Vision of Yamada Dojo：

◆ Entrepreneurs causing innovation：
We are aiming to foster leaders who can develop and execute in emerging fields (markets) of research, technology, and business.

◆ Creativity and Responsibility：
"Leadership" and "Entrepreneurship" can in a sense be equal, but entrepreneurship should not be for merely establishing enterprises, it should also embody leadership with a sense of responsibility to society.

◆ Execution to overcome barriers：
We are fostering execution capability that can overcome organizational barriers of nations, religion, and race.

Direction and concept：

◆ Attaining "leadership" is not the purpose of this Dojo. Rather, it is the process of executing "something" through the exercise of "leadership" that is more important - the act of leading rather than the position of leadership.

◆ While knowledge and logical thinking are fundamental, of more importance to Global Leaders is the ability for lateral "jumping", non-linear execution, and creativity not linked to previous experience, perceived common sense and understanding, but instead to craft structure that better meet future needs of users (markets and customers).

◆ Expansion of individual's capabilities is more important to society.

◆ Motivation and desire are important factor to do good job.

◆ Not emphasizing on "how to" type of training, iteration of innovation eco-system concept; "empathize", "define", "ideation", "prototype (MVP)", "feedback" and "blush-up", should be more important.

Structure of Dojo：

◆ Core Programs (Creativity, Execution and Jump)

　☆Design Thinking Workshop facilitated by Takanori Kashino, Design Thinking Lab.

　☆ Future Foresight Workshop facilitated by Keigo Awata, Hakuhodo Furture Lab.

　☆ Cross Culture Workshop

　　
　 ☆ Lean Launchpad facilitated by Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino, Learning Entrepreneurs' Lab.

◆ Support Programs (Perspective shift, diversification, motivation)

　 ☆ Lecture and discussion with professionals including top management, entrepreneurs, creators, journalists and officers：

　　
Mr. Hideyuki Sakamoto, Nissan Motors Ltd.

　　　
Mr. Takeshi Hakamada, ispace technologies, inc.

　　　
Mr. Naohiro Kaji, METI


　　　
Mr. Akira Kurabayashi, salesforce.com

☆ Legal & Compliance- Mr. K. Minagawa, Attorney-at Law)
☆ Financial Statement Analysis- Mr. M. Hase, CPA and CPTA

Special Events, Studying abroad, Original English Conversation Training Course：

◆ "d.school comes to Tokyo Tech"; 3-day intensive class of Design Challenge by d.school tutors.

◆ Stanford Univ./Innovation Master Series; 3 day boot camp in Stanford Univ. （twice a year）

◆ Language Workout Porgram (L-WoP)：通年

議論、説得、交渉ができる英会話力の養成を目的に、東工大大学院生の環境に配慮したe-learning/Skype Lesson/Workshopを組み合わせたオリジナル・メソット

これまでの活動：

AGL学生による下記道場レポート「WHAT'S GOING ON」をご参照