NEWS

An important part of what we do at Rakuten Institute of Technology is collaborating with academia in a variety of ways. Generally, this comes in the shape of research collaborations with university labs or professors that help us keep up with the latest developments and give us a fresh perspective. However, recently we are looking into a somewhat different type of academic collaboration.

The other day, we made a visit to St. Mary’s International School, a K-12 school located near our offices in Setagaya, Tokyo. Ms. Kimberly Fradale and representatives of the student council met up with us and gave us an extended tour of their campus, showing off the many fine facilities. Including things like multiple libraries, a design studio, and spaces for extracurricular activities in areas such as robotics, the environment seems great for fostering creative young minds. The students of St. Mary’s have also had very strong success in academic competitions such as BrainBowl, showing that they are indeed very bright and hard working.

While no details have been decided yet, our hope is that the collaboration can work to promote the development of future young innovators by combining their creativity with our resources. Some of the ideas so far include involving them in the Rakuten Social Accelerator program, which works with organizations outside of Rakuten by providing them with our resources and technology to bring more good to society. Like an incubator program it supports the creating of organizations and initiatives, but with the express purpose of making a better society. Considering the school’s strong history of activities in areas such as robotics, we have also started a conversation bringing in the Rakuten Robot Club to see how the three parties could possibly collaborate. We are also considering involving them in the yearly Rakuten Tech Conference, to give them an opportunity to learn more about technologies and movements in industry.

We hope that these initiatives can all help bring more great ideas to not only Rakuten, but society as a whole, and that it can help the students of St. Mary’s develop into future bright minds. We will make sure to keep you updated on any progress, so keep an eye out for more!

St. Mary’s International School