The 114th Installment
Foundation for Achieving Innovation through Exchange Beyond Field, Age, and Country

Starting this academic year, I will be serving as an associate professor at this university. I have lived overseas for a total of 12 years, nine of them in Melbourne Australia and the other three in Cambridge, UK, where I did research. Cambridge University is world renowned not only for its scholarship but also for being a place where numerous inventions and innovations drive global business. In this installment, I would like to talk a little about Cambridge.

Cambridge University was officially founded in 1209. Following a certain incident that occurred at Oxford University that year (please look it up if you want to know more), Oxford University teachers and students moved to Cambridge and started Cambridge University. Cambridge University has produced many prominent figures since then, including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Alan Turing, John Harvard, and Stephen Hawking. It has also produced more than 100 Nobel Prize winners.

I would also like to talk about a few characteristics of Cambridge from my experience there as a graduate student and fellow. At Cambridge, there is a general emphasis on contributing to theory and practice. One is required to contribute both to theory and practice, and this is especially true in the manufacturing laboratory that I belonged to at the university's department of engineering. The research environment is such that one must learn, think, act, and master subjects. Here, it is important to make progress with the big picture always in mind. That means being able to logically explain how one's research contributes to theory and to practice, but also objectively evaluate the views of others through focus groups and workshops. When doing experiments, for example, people enthusiastically help one another, including one's fellow researchers.

There are also aspects of private life outside of research and classes that are characteristic of Cambridge. For instance, Cambridge University has a collegiate system (this is true of Oxford, as well). All faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students belong to one of the university's 31 colleges and are required to live there. Every student is provided a room by the college, and they take the classes, eat their meals, and engage with others there. Because one belongs to a certain college regardless of their academic field, people in the same and different fields all interact with each other on a daily basis. The main way to mix and mingle is an event known as the Formal Dinner, which is held every week. All members of the college—faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students—attend wearing traditional gowns. At this weekly dinner, people interact not only with those inside and outside their academic field but also those of different ages and from different countries.

At AIIT I am currently building a roadmapping system that has been researched for many years, mainly at Cambridge University, while also developing an efficient and effective goal-based methodology and conducting applied research. Roadmapping is an important endeavor that involves promoting inter-disciplinary communication and exchange by visualizing strategies concerning not only technologies but also products, businesses, and management. It enables one to, for example, support system building for business design and innovation achievement, and to communicate one's intentions inside and outside one's organization. Looking back, Cambridge University has put an emphasis on contributing to theory and practice while valuing interaction beyond academic fields, age, or country. This has been a factor behind the many celebrated researchers, inventors, and global companies that the university has turned out, and thinking about this reminds me of the original context behind which Cambridge University came to advance the roadmapping field.

AIIT is currently conducting AIIT Project-based Learning (AIIT PBL) as a core aspect of its degree programs. AIIT has first-year students acquire knowledge and skills systematically, while second-year students engage in AIIT PBL, through which they develop competency in carrying out tasks by working in teams of people from the same and different disciplines, ages, and countries. It is a groundbreaking education method that emphasizes a connection between theory and practice. Through roadmapping and related research, I very much hope to make a difference in the further development of AIIT PBL. In time, I would like to plan and carry out a strategy for making AIIT a place for interaction beyond academic field, age, or country, just as the colleges of Cambridge University are doing.