Congratulations on Reception of Awards by the University and Students
Senior Student Wataru Asai Won a Special Award at the 1st Community Youth Challenge
Mr. Asai at the presentation
The "1st Community Youth Challenge" was held in Tokyo and 8 representatives from various regions made their final presentations
on results of their long-term internships conducted under the "Challenge Community Projects" in 2007 organized by
Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities (ETIC). University/college students around the country participated in the projects
that they worked on together with local businesspeople for new business creation and regional reconstruction. Mr. Wataru Asai,
a 4th-year student of the School of Computer Science and Engineering and Designium Inc. (President Satoshi Maeda,
a University of Aizu-launched venture company), the host company of his internship, had received a special award chosen by the audience vote.
The project which Mr. Asai and Designium had worked on was "Web Creation and Product Branding of a Traditional Paulownia (Kiri) Crafts Shop in the Region."
Designium received an order from an Aizu-kiri chest shop to create an online shopping site for paulownia clogs (Kiri Geta) separately
from its official website.
Mr. Asai talked about his impressions regarding the reception of the award in an interview.
| Q. | What made you decide to participate in this project? |
| A. | I met President Maeda of Designium at an internship fair of the company which was held on campus. I have served at an internship at the company since my second year at the University. Desigunium worked on web-page design for a local paulownia wood products company and a branding project. I was involved in these works and I also got to work on a new project that focused on paulownia clogs (Kiri Geta). Although I managed this website, I started out with feelings of insecurity in running the site, because I was under the impression that most young people do not wear geta so often. Later I found there were various types of shapes, color designs used for straps which I thought were really fashionable. At that point, I decided that I would try to make a website would be easy to understand for people unfamiliar with geta like myself. |
| Q. | Please tell us about any special efforts you took for the project. |
| A. | First of all, I thought about what scene was the most effective to show when geta could be worn. Geta is a seasonal product and its sales increase in summer. There was no doubt that geta matched yukata, so my idea was to convey this particular image to customers. I chose scenic settings such as Ouchi-juku and Yanaizu as sample images, where I thought would really fit in nicely with yukata, and I did copywriting, designing and coding of web-pages, all these kinds of work. During my first year on the project, I depended on my predictions, but I became more strategic the following year to create and operate the website based on detailed analysis of access status and replies to questionnaires. I used my IT skills that I acquired through my studies at the University. It was really helpful for the work. |
| Q. | What did you learn from the project? |
| A. | I chose the University because I liked computers. Since I actually started to study here, my concern changed from the development of tools to the use of those tools. I was really interested in what I could do with them. I agonized about my future career because I was stuck in technical aspects of computers. However, through my internship experience, I recognized how development tools were actually used in works. |
| Q. | Please express your hopes in the future. |
| A. | I will start my career at Designium after graduation. I hope to contribute to the company and the community as well as the University. I also would like to convey what I have learned from this experience to people who are still uncertain about their future careers to make them realize that there are many paths to choose from. |
- [Reference] Please view the Award results at the following link. (Only in Japanese)
- http://www.challenge-community.jp/award/report.html
 Awards ceremony |
The 10th Fukushima Universal Design Fair
The University's research on "3D Kanji," which has been conducted centered around Assistant Professor Yoshioka of the Active Knowledge Engineering Laboratory received a Special Award presented by Director of Koriyama Area Technopolis Promotion Organization at the 10th Fukushima Universal Design Fair in Koriyama. A total of 90 companies and business institutions participated in the fair to introduce their universal design products and systems, and the fair awarded prizes for excellent ideas among those products. At the University of Aizu booth, Mr. Koichi Noda (4th-year student) and Mr. Nobuhiko Hishinuma (3rd-year student) explained and gave demonstrations of their research, and Mr. Noda attended the awards ceremony.
 Awards ceremony |
 Assisitant Professor Yoshioka (middle) Mr. Hishinuma (left) and Mr. Noda (right) holding 3D Kanji objects in their hands |