In the January Plenary Meeting, the final presentation for the Industry-academia collaboration Ideathon/Hackathon Program was held. Additionally, students presented on their Global Challenge 2 and Follow-Up Visits.

Here is a short summary of the topics discussed:

Industry-academia collaboration Ideathon / Hackathon Program

In the Industry-academia collaboration Ideathon/Hackathon program, affiliated enterprises provide AI-, IoT- or BigData-related problems and topics for groups of students to solve. Multiple ambitious groups of graduate students compete to brainstorm novel ideas and business models for conquering these issues.

This time, the program collaborated with Benesse Corporation for hold this Ideathon. Using a large-scaled dataset provided by Benesse Corporation and a given problem setting, students from the third to fifth inaugural classes formed four working groups to analyze the dataset in different ways. Each group presented their results including their proposed hypotheses, hypothesis verifications, and evaluations based on data analysis. They received feedback from both faculty members and business mentors, discussing the data analysis methods in detail.

After each group presented their results, Benesse Corporation and the Nagoya University Faculty evaluated and awarded the top groups. Group A received the Grand Prize, and Group C was selected for second place. Here is a summary of each group and their leader:

The reward was given as follows:

Global ChallengeⅡ

In the Global Challenge II, students visit a top-tier international research institution. While participating in competitive research, they can practice the communication and interaction with international researchers. This time, one student reported on his experience during the Global Challenge II. Mr. Chin reported on how he could make new connections to researchers from Top-Level universities, studied on autonomous driving, and improved his English proficiency skills, during the 2 month stay, making an impact on his interest in state-of-the-art autonomous driving technologies.

The following shows the student participating in this Global Challenge II and the research institution it took place at:

Reports on Follow-Up Visits

In the Follow-Up Visit, students will re-visit a research institute they previously visited throughout the program. A visit is done in a group of students from different departments, so students can experience state-of-the-art research across different fields. This aims at broadening the students' horizon by allowing them to connect to people and organizations from other fields. This time, three students paired up to do a Follow-Up visit. They reported their experiences during the visit, how it broadened their horizon, as they could meet with researchers from other fields to engage in collaborations.