Date

2025/8/20 (Wed)14:00-16:00（JST）

Field

Youth and innovation

Venue / Event Format

JICA Yokohama / Hybrid (In-person and Online)

Co-Host

Nagaoka University of Technology

Background

• Launched in FY2019, the KOSEN Open Innovation Challenge (hereinafter “KOSEN OI”) is a hackathon that invites technical college (KOSEN) students from across Japan to propose solutions to challenges identified in collaboration with local partners such as African companies and government agencies.
  Winning teams carry out proof-of-concept trials on-site, offering students the opportunity to engage directly with development issues. Leveraging KOSEN students’ flexible thinking and technical expertise, the program seeks sustainable solutions through cooperation with local universities, government bodies, and other stakeholders.
• KOSEN OI places strong emphasis on "reverse innovation", where Japanese youth apply their skills and ideas in real-world African contexts, and in turn, bring those insights back to Japan. The very process of co-creation, where African and Japanese youth develop new solutions together by exchanging knowledge, holds significant educational value for nurturing the next generation of leaders.

Key Questions

• How did Japanese students who visited Africa change their perspectives?
• What kinds of experiences and knowledge are needed to see Africa’s development challenges as personal issues?
• What is the significance of young people, such as KOSEN students and teenagers, engaging with social issues?
• What is the value of co-creation in the field of development?
• How can reverse innovation be further advanced?

Objective

This event aims to encourage young participants, particularly teenagers, to feel a closer connection to Africa and to take initiative themselves, through firsthand accounts by KOSEN students who visited Africa and conducted field-based trials as part of KOSEN OI.
It provides an opportunity for Japanese youth to learn about social challenges in Africa and to foster a global outlook and problem-solving skills through the generation and implementation of ideas for real-world solutions.
Through showcasing the KOSEN Open Innovation Challenge and student field experiences in Africa, the event reframes Africa not as a distant world but as a real place where youth can engage with pressing issues.

• This initiative also positions the co-creation process, in which African and Japanese youth bring their knowledge together to tackle shared challenges, as a practical model of reverse innovation, feeding those learnings back into Japanese education.
  Through this approach, it aims to cultivate the next generation of human resources capable of contributing to a sustainable society.

Materials

Speakers