The SDGs adopted by the U.N. in September 2015 are intended to be achieved by 2030. The 17 goals and 169 associated targets are for both developing and advanced economies to pursue to realize a society that will “leave no one behind.”

Click here to find details of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s SDG initiatives.

There are many companies that provide students with online learning programs, but SuRaLa Net’s focus is on helping students with low academic ability.

“There is a correlation between academic ability and the income levels of households with students, in any part of the world,” SuRaLa Net Co. founder and Chief Executive Officer Takahiko Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s focus.

“But many educational companies, including those providing e-learning services, target students with high academic ability, and tend to leave behind children with low academic ability or from low-income households,” he continued. “We aim to eliminate a negative spiral of income gaps and educational gaps by providing educational materials online aimed at helping raise the academic ability of students with low academic skills,” he said. “And we see a business opportunity there.”

“In the corner of my mind, there was a vague idea that we may be able to contribute to solving social issues by, for example, promoting literacy in emerging countries,” Yunokawa said, explaining the company’s motive for targeting both domestic and overseas markets. “In my previous job (at Venture Link Inc.), I had an opportunity to travel to an emerging country and was shocked to find out that the local literacy rate then was lower than I had expected. That experience was the starting point,” he said. “I was especially shocked to learn that over 10% of Chinese and over 30% of Indians could not read. Levels of education were noticeably low especially among people in poor and low-income classes.

“Our company’s strength is in addressing low-achievement students, and so our curriculums proceed in gradual steps and provide careful explanation. That means they don’t require much tweaking to be used in emerging countries. We began offering the service in Sri Lanka in 2016 and we now operate also in Indonesia, India and the Philippines,” he said.

“Operating a business overseas can lead to creating social value in the region, and the size of the market is many times that of the Japanese market, so it was obvious to us that overseas expansion was essential for the company’s growth over the medium to long term,” he said. “The problem was, we were at the time preparing for listing our shares, partly because of the exit strategy of the fund. Expanding operations overseas would require a lot of funding. Luckily, we were able to receive assistance from JICA’s Feasibility Survey for SDGs Business (formerly the Preparatory Survey on BOP Business),” he said, referring to the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

“After we launched business overseas, we were again fortunate to receive support from the programs of public organizations, such as JETRO (the Japan External Trade Organization),” he said.

Koizumi: AI Quest is a program aimed at creating a place of practical learning, mainly using case studies based on actual issues experienced by businesses.

Conceived on our belief that personnel development is essential for a wider introduction of AI in society, the program was carried out from October to February, with about 200 participants. Saito and Orimo helped us in many respects of the program, including development of educational methods, such as material development, operation of the program and review of its impact.

There are many examples of developing AI specialists using advanced methods. For example, a programming school in France, called “42,” charges no tuition fees but it conducts a monthlong, round-the-clock test. Meanwhile in the United States, there are people who pay high tuition to attend schools because internet companies, including GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), are hiring AI specialists at high salaries.

So overseas, such intense competition between people seeking to enter the industry has partially driven the development of education.

Saito: Naturally, if the size of the job market where one can play a viable role is significant, it serves as an incentive to learn. The U.S. has an established design of a game in which people who have solved a problem can take control of business, but Japan is still in a phase where such a game is being created.

That is why it is important to show to the public an image of talent who can generate economic impact through specific achievements capitalizing on AI, which will help increase motivation for learning — not just the vague air of us doing an AI-related project.

I think it is necessary to create an ecosystem where such individuals will play an active role in accelerating an increased use of AI in society.

Orimo: But in Japan, we have an issue to solve before setting an ideal talent model. Our problem is that, in Japan, corporate and personnel strategies aren’t linked together. Personnel measures are carried out without clearly defined job descriptions. It’s often unclear what types of talent you have on your team. When you’re thinking of corporate strategy for the future, you’re not sure how many digital specialists may become necessary.

Takeuchi: What kind of boy were you when you were young?

Nishikawa: I became interested in PCs around the fourth grade. My father had an introductory book on (the programming language) BASIC. I picked it up and I was immediately hooked. My parents wouldn’t buy me a PC, so I would play around with source code on a piece of paper.

After I got my own PC, I spent days programming. Then, I gradually became curious about the more fundamental aspects of computing, not just programming — like how computers work in the first place? From there, my interest grew in the direction of networks and hardware. I didn’t think twice about joining the Hiraki lab (professor Kei Hiraki’s lab at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology).

Takeuchi: It’s an interesting lab. I hear the professor still visits your company.

Nishikawa: Yes, he does. Actually, he works for us full time.

Takeuchi: So, you asked him to join PFN?

Nishikawa: No, he first told me he wanted to talk about something and visited our office. Until then, he had advised us on analogue aspects, like the handling of processor boards and high frequencies and things like that.

One day, he told us he wanted to develop a supercomputer with PFN. He now gives lectures to our members once a month or so.

Takeuchi: Am I correct in remembering that you met (PFN co-founder and Vice President Daisuke) Okanohara in college?

Nishikawa: Correct. We were in the same class in the first year, and our relationship has continued to this day.

He said he wanted to run an application on a search engine he developed through the MITOU Program. While I helped him with that, we started discussing our dream of creating a sophisticated search engine and launching a business around it.

Takeuchi: So, that led you to establish (PFN predecessor) Preferred Infrastructure (PFI), right? I understand you launched the business when you were in graduate school. What were your career plans at the time?

Nishikawa: At the time, I was interested in IBM or Intel. While I was working part-time for a bio startup, this experience helped me realize it was possible to work with a small team that enabled me to do and approach things I wanted to in ways I liked. That’s why I decided to start a company, but I had little funding. Starting a company wouldn’t have been possible without MITOU’s support.

Support in early years

Takeuchi: So, the business took off smoothly?

Nishikawa: No, not at all. The founding members were all engineers. We had zero knowledge about making money, let alone how to establish a company.

That’s where MITOU’s support proved helpful. The program referred us to experts who could give us advice about things involved in starting a company, like legal, financial or intellectual property matters. An accounting firm that helped us back in those days is still doing some work for us.

Responding to such social transformation, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) launched the Educational Industry Office in 2017. As the ministry oversees the private education industry, including cram schools and lessons outside of school, it has since promoted efforts to spur innovation, including ed tech, created by private sector parties for schools to seek new platforms of education.

This ministerial effort was collectively named the Learning Innovation Project, with three pillars being promoted across the country. These pillars are self-driven and individually optimized learning; STEAM-based learning approach; and new educational environment development. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Specifically, experimental programs have been conducted at schools utilizing ed tech to effectively introduce knowledge of school subjects and expertise — which would create spare time — and then holding STEAM-based lessons using this extra time. Placing curiosity and excitement of children at their core, these projects seek to circulate the act of “learning” obtained from input and that of “creation” based on STEAM-focused sessions.

For instance, an elementary school in Shizuoka Prefecture is working to incorporate ed tech into a math class — a part of the learning process — and holds STEAM-based lessons on tag rugby and programming — a part of the creation process — for its sixth-grade students.

By making use of ed tech, the former has achieved learning styles better suited for each student while simultaneously having appropriate instructions from teachers and students teaching each other. In the end, this effort aims to both streamline learning and deepen understanding among individual students.

Developing STEAM-based study materials themed on tag rugby and programming, the latter effort sets out to enable students to learn the physical coordination needed for tag rugby and at the same time express how to move their body in an electronic sense, utilizing knowledge of programming.

These programs eventually pursue the acquisition of the ability to set assignments, which in this case is connected with covering fractions and proportions in math, and the students’ ability to solve problems by themselves.

Furthermore, METI has co-organized campaigns with municipalities and other relevant parties across the country for the Learning Innovation Project in a bid to disseminate, facilitate understanding and promote the introduction of ed tech and STEAM-based education.

These efforts surely offer officials of municipal governments and local education boards, teachers, parents and students opportunities to get to know ed tech and STEAM-focused programs in person. They are also expected to help them realize the learning effect potential of ed tech, which would obviously boost the introduction and spread of this concept.

Goda: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel puzzled about that. The futures MEXT and METI describe actually overlap, so I was looking forward to this discussion, hoping to deepen mutual understanding.

This might be off track, but I heard you’ve been to Hiroshima to support areas affected by heavy rain in western Japan, right?

Asano: Yes. It was only for eight days, but I was reminded that disaster-hit areas are at the forefront of social issues that need to be addressed. What matters there is the ability to judge instantly where and what kind of support is necessary, and the mobility to act as a team. Demand for bento surpassed the supply, so we asked local students to help increase production. Within an hour, about 100 of them had rushed to the site. I was really moved by this. It’s precisely the implementation of hands-on, project-based learning in practice.

At the same time, I felt it’s essential to create a social climate accepting of such an effort.

Goda: Amid changing situations, adults needing to prompt and push children to think about their priorities and actions, as well as to be proactive, is education in a broader sense.

The drastic progress of AI requires children, more than ever, to exercise human potential regarding things only they can do. We feel the necessity to reform the way of learning; not only lectures across the board altogether, but also collaborations and studying with different grades of students, as well as in different groups, should be valued.

Asano: As far as we see in the new curriculum guideline that features an educational approach of proactive, dialogue-based and engaging learning (active learning) through discussions and presentations, I can say MEXT’s awareness of the issues is of the same vein as our own.

Education now on next stage

Goda: About 20 years have passed since MEXT came up with the “relaxed education” policy that placed emphasis on learning and experience-based activities to hone thinking power, but society has drastically changed since then. AI’s victory over the world champion of the board game go is a symbolic event that represents this change. I consider it a turning point for society to clearly anticipate the future.

AI can easily surpass human intelligence in a field with a definitive structure and an abundance of data. Through witnessing such a phenomenon, many people have come to realize the necessity of collaborating with others and autonomous learning through thorough thinking.

Of course, it’s a given fact to steadily acquire fundamental academic skills. The new curriculum guideline after 20 years shows Japanese education is about to enter the next phase. (Note: The curriculum is to be implemented from the 2020 academic year at elementary schools and from the 2021 academic year at junior high schools.)

Asano: Over the past six months, both ministries promoted discussions; with MEXT at the “Round Table Conference with the Minister on nurturing individual talent toward Society 5.0” and METI at the “Study Group for Learning Innovation — ‘Future Classroom’ and EdTech” (educational technology). What we wanted to emphasize the most was the importance of nurturing skills to creatively seek out tasks and solve them. Moreover, it’s an attitude to rise up to tasks, crossing over to disciplines different from one’s own, and the tenacity to push through for a touchdown after struggling in different ways, mud and all. These abilities cannot be acquired overnight; I think education from early childhood is essential. That’s why we at METI decided to also work for the sake of education.

In the transformation of learning styles, schools can offer study content tailored to a student’s depth of understanding and progress through utilization of information technology. Additionally, if the use of AI could streamline the acquisition of basic knowledge, it would create spare time to allocate for creative learning hours. To what extent could these educational innovations be accepted?

Goda: Under the decentralized educational administration, there are many things that a school and an education board can do. Of course, relevant parties engaging in education, including MEXT, need to transform their mindset and culture to match the challenge oriented. At the same time, we all obviously have to continue to elaborate how the educational system should be, as needed.

Teachers as producers

Goda: Regarding individualized and optimized learning, I actually have something I’m worried about right now from a perspective that what’s important, above all, is whether such education is provided fairly.

It’s a sentiment shared by teachers at schools that there is an increasing discrepancy in vocabulary among children entering elementary school. I’m deeply concerned that such a discrepancy would lead to differences in their academic performance levels, which might not shrink in the future. As a countermeasure, I have an expectation that repetitive learning with the use of IT is effective. Upon hearing the utilization of IT in the classroom, many people tend to conjure an image of everybody working silently with a tablet. In order to exercise human potential that is essential in the era of AI, the significance of learning in a group setting such as studying and teaching from one another is increasingly important. We need to consider the ways to bring about proactive, dialogue-based and engaging learning, giving thought to how to create a lesson unit with a particular intention. I assume future teachers would be required to not only have teaching skills, but to also play a producer-type role to stage and coordinate learning for their students.

Asano: What I’m concerned about is that classes tend to proceed with a predetermined approach based on a teacher’s plan.

Goda: Predetermination is what the Japanese educational circle has to overcome. For example, in the dotoku (moral education) class, a “special subject” (introduced in April at elementary schools and to start at junior high schools from next April), it is supposed to be taught that if students discover an instance of bullying, they are recommended to report it to teachers and parents at once. At the same time, according to another dotoku guideline, it tells students to place a thorough trust in friends.

We consciously included such conflicts in moral value in the new curriculum guideline. Each idea sounds harmonious by itself. However, what people would inevitably face in the real world are conflicts of values and a gap between these values and reality. We want students to cultivate skills to squarely face dilemmas and unexpected problems, and coordinate them well, as well as nurture abilities to responsibly carry out things; rather than just seeking to resolve these issues with only pleasant conversation.

Unlocking common sense

Asano: I personally feel that teachers themselves are caught up in the present idea of common sense or stereotype that “the conclusion should be this.” So, to carry out active learning in a true sense in the classroom, the first step would be to relieve them from such notions.

Goda: I think it’s the same for us parents and companies. People’s attitudes have not caught up with the social changes of the past five or 10 years, a volume of change so large that it can be described as destructive.

That being said, if we were to change our perspective on children, we can say that children have the potential to challenge and create new things because of their penchant for destruction.

Asano: To relieve teachers from said notions, it’s essential to have exchanges with various organizations, such as the economic circle and nonprofits. So for that reason, we’d like to create opportunities to talk. I’m sure the words from people who generate new values would resonate more with them than those of ministry officials.

Our ministry’s demonstration experiment works to develop a new educational program utilizing edtech and others through collaborations among private firms, nonprofits, junior high and high schools across the country. We’d like MEXT to be part of this framework and in the meantime, we’d like to join MEXT’s platform that involves educational board chiefs and school principals. We’d like to bridge our borders more and more.

Dialogue with various groups

Goda: I’d definitely like to hold talks between people who generate new values and teachers and parents.

I’m also in charge of work reform at schools, so I want to change the current situation. Our ministry would like to engage in a dialogue with manufacturers and startups in the education field, explaining that the introduction of edtech would drastically change the quality of education. At the same time, we seek to redefine the expertise of teachers again and to transform the quality of education and the way the teachers work at once through building a social consensus. I’m aware that this is a theme leading to how the country should be.

Asano: Let’s work on things together for years to come.

A teacher standing in front of a blackboard oversees a large class — this image of the typical classroom has persisted for more than 150 years since the Meiji Era.

Daisuke Inada, CEO of atama plus Inc., which provides study support through artificial intelligence, says he wants to drastically transform this long-lasting image. He jointly founded the company, based in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, in April 2017 with two of his classmates from his alma mater, the University of Tokyo, after working at a major trading house.

The company offers an approach that utilizes AI to analyze a customer’s learning history, degree of concentration and propensity for mistakes on a real-time basis. This enables the firm to provide customized learning materials for each individual. Although the service has only been around for a year or so, it has been increasingly utilized by major private preparatory schools.

The advantage of using AI is being able to unfailingly identify the root cause of why a student is unable to solve a problem. For example, the sine formula is something first-year high school students tend to struggle with. People generally believe that simply solving similar problems over and over would eventually lead to overcoming their struggles. However, the reason behind this difficulty varies among students.

One student was told through the service that the reason of failing to solve a sine formula problem was their lack of understanding of what a triangle’s circumcenter is, which is necessary preliminary knowledge. The student went on to be advised that it’s efficient to review the Pythagorean theorem, which is taught in junior high school. The company says if a student works on solving problems for a while, its AI can figure out their strong and weak points, as well as the student’s level of understanding.

Inada hopes to halve the required time for basic learning through the company’s service and to enable students, using the surplus time, to nurture abilities to live independently in the future society. He thinks teachers would be able to play a primary role such as encouraging and taking care of students, without having to engage in a one-way lecture, if AI and humans share roles; with the former committing to teaching and the latter to coaching.

Winning hearts of test-takers

Affectionately known as “stapura,” a portmanteau of “study” and “plus,” and popular among students preparing for entrance exams, Studyplus Inc. based in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward offers an education-related app. The company is famous as a platform provider for such students with more than 3 million users.

If a student types when and how much they studied, as well as reference books they used into the smartphone app, those pieces of data would be visualized with graphs showing daily, weekly and monthly records. On first glance, it merely appears to be a digitalization of one’s study history, which used to be recorded manually. However, the company’s service has various features to grab the interest of the digital native generation whose smartphones are always with them.

One of them is the utilization of social networking services (SNS). Some users have said that they would like to boost their motivation by actively interacting with students aiming for the same schools, rather than with close friends, as they prefer not to discuss such topics with them. To meet this demand, the company enhanced its SNS functions, leading to a sharp increase in its app’s users. Additionally, increasing numbers of cram schools and private preparatory schools have used the service, hoping to keep tabs on their students’ study progress at home.

“All in all, what matters is motivation.” This phrase that came up frequently in conversations that Studyplus President Takashi Hirose had with his friends when he was a student preparing for entrance exams. These conversations served as the origin of the development of the service.

“In conventional education, viewpoints from the teaching side were stronger and students’ individual characters and differences among them were not taken into consideration,” Hirose said. “If technological help is introduced, a proactive learning style would take root among students. How to fuel motivation will be a key in the process.”

Talents in programming

Based in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, Life is Tech Inc. is a company leading a new market of programming education. The firm currently focuses on developing online learning services in addition to its core business of operating camps and schools where junior high and high school students study programming and IT.

One of the products resulting from the company’s efforts is a set of educational programming materials that launched in April. The firm signed a license agreement with The Walt Disney Co. (Japan) for these materials, which feature an enhanced taste of entertainment to raise the continuity rate — a challenge of online learning. The product features works to maintain user interest here and there, including popular Disney characters who appear in its lessons and the “Book of Magic,” provided offline that works with the online content and stories.

It has sold well, despite costing ¥128,000, which is by no means inexpensive. Not all of the purchasers have prior experience with programming. However, according to the company, some consumers believe it’s actually a bargain if it’s viewed as an investment since they can enjoy learning programming, a beneficial skill for their futures.

Superheroes in IT field

Life is Tech was founded in 2010 by CEO Yusuke Mizuno, who used to work as a part-time teacher at private Kaisei Senior High School in Arakawa Ward, Tokyo. It is one of the well-established companies among edtech startups.

What led to the launch of the company was an inquiry from one of his students at the high school, who said, “I’d like to create and introduce a self-built game at the school’s cultural festival.” Mizuno thought there must be a similar number of students who like computers and IT as those who are fond of baseball or soccer, but there were no places where they can learn or opportunities to take chances in those fields.

Mizuno has worked on expanding the base of personnel in programming. “We need a system to produce superheroes in the IT industry — something like we see in the baseball world where there is a path to go professional following a successful career at Koshien,” he said. Koshien is a famous national baseball tournament for high school players held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

Eight years after launching his company, he feels social changes surrounding programming education, which has led to the expansion of his company’s businesses. Besides the introduction of compulsory programming education at elementary schools in the near future, close proximity to IT — thanks to the widespread use of smartphones — has spurred on motivation among students to learn.

At the Teens Apps Awards contest where junior high and high school students compete in developing smartphone applications, many students who participated in the camps organized by Life is Tech have won prizes.

Many students have come to share awareness and sentiments such as, “I’d like to do it by myself,” and “Programming is not a special skill.” According to the company, this occurs after they actually see their peers in the same generation solving problems faced by family members or have come to bring their everyday ideas into being, with the help of technology.

A market of $40 billion

According to American consulting firm Frost & Sullivan Inc., the average annual growth rate of the edtech market is estimated to be 18.3 percent. The market revenue is expected to grow to over $40 billion.

Some people point out that Japan lags behind, especially in introducing technology to public education. However, Inada of atama plus said: “It’s the same anywhere in the world in that it takes time to transform the classroom. Once the national strategy becomes clearer, Japan would rather have more rooms to have explosive growth in introducing such technology.”

Mizuno of Life is Tech has his eyes on developing the service overseas, noting, “High-quality Japanese educational materials have been well-received in the U.S.”

Japan has embarked on educational reform, adding the promotion of edtech to the government-led initiative of the so-called human resources development revolution. The edtech market has been driven by fledgling startups, but these days, major firms are active in mergers and acquisitions in this field. Edtech is possibly about to kick into gear after going through this period of growth.