Graduates in their 50s who made a career change

Mr. IMURA Akitsugu

PROFILE
Director, Shoei Sangyo, Inc.

Graduated from the College of Industrial Technology
Received a degree in Creative Technology in 2017

Make the most of yourself, wherever you are needed in the world

Challenges facing engineers after retirement

A JICA poster caught my eye one day when I was 60 and close to retirement. When I looked into it on the Internet, I learned that a technical college in Indonesia was looking for volunteers and senior overseas cooperation teams to provide technical guidance. As an engineer with Nippon Steel's environment division, I decided that I would apply for that position as a challenge for myself after retirement. However, while I had some experience with mechanical engineering, I admit that I knew little about 3D printers and other such state-of-the-art technologies. My first major goal when I first joined AIIT was to learn about 3D printer structure and systems, and to familiarize myself with their usage.
　Six months later, I was facing retirement and was just about to throw myself at my studies at AIIT when my company suddenly extended the retirement age to 65. However, I decided to retire anyway in order to prioritize my studies and take up the challenges that would follow. I was later hired to be a technical consultant for an environmental company that I had had contact with. The company understood my goals and allowed me to be a part-time worker with a lighter workload. Considering that I would have to work and study at the same time, I joined the university with a plan to finish in three years.

Finding motivation and resolve in an international conference

AIIT has many wonderful advisors in its design department, enabling me to study creative design appropriate to a graduate school. The 3D printers I had been looking forward to using were surprisingly simple devices once I started using them. Furthermore, I met a lot of cherished people and had great experiences that changed my life thereafter as an engineer.
　AIIT is a professional graduate school focused on engineering, but it also offers internationally-oriented courses in the social sciences. I had an interest in volunteering overseas, so I enrolled in these courses and also took PBL in the field of international services. By an interesting coincidence, Indonesia was my subject of study. I got involved in cleaning the rivers in Jakarta, which while being home to numerous sites with historical heritage, suffer from pollution and foul odors. Taking advantage of my experience having worked in the environmental field, I used a system powered by microorganisms in the natural world to remove the odors in one month and made the water clean enough for small fish to swim in within three months.
　Also, in Indonesia, I had the precious experience of attending the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, accompanied by my PBL supervisor. Inspired by education seminars I attended around that time, it strengthened my desire to be of service wherever in the world there is a need.

Conveying visual concepts across language barriers

Six months after leaving AIIT, I started working as a technical advisor for the environment in Guyana as a member of the Senior Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. What served me well in this endeavor were design techniques I learned outside of my studies at AIIT. Although familiar to me as I was a mechanical engineer, the detailed design drawings I showed to local team members were difficult for them to grasp. So I made a series of simple design images, like comics, that were immensely useful in transcending language differences to convey visual concepts. Everything that I have gained from AIIT, including my dependable friends, has helped me get to where I am today.