Graduates in their 40s who started their own businesses

Mr. KAMIMURA Takayuki

PROFILE
President and Representative Director of OTTOTTO Co., Ltd.
Founder of INQUVEX Inc.

Completed the Master Program of Innovation for Design and Engineering in 2017

Throwing the stone that changes society's norms and rules

Enrolled seeking perfect management

Perfect management is everything I wanted to learn at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in a single word. I was looking for knowledge and methods to develop services that designed everything, such as mechanisms and schemes, and to learn management that would enable my intentions to reach every corner.

I started my business as a student in my 20s, and have managed the company for about 30 years. Although I identified timely products and was placed on the ranking list of millionaires, only the businesses that were in line with national policies succeeded. Those that I started from my own interests never generated satisfying profits. Policy-driven business will work for anyone. It is not a special talent that business operators have. Moreover, if products lose their appeal, you must search again for the next one. I came to AIIT because I wanted to design services that would grow my company by upgrading products, not replacing them. I looked forward to the direction AIIT took in thinking about the design and management of services in an engineering manner.

Proceeding with a project through project-based learning and in my company

I was surprised when I enrolled. The management I learned at AIIT, which even designs the smiles of users, was more thorough than my idea of “perfect”. I also took a course in Information Systems Architecture. This is because I was learning to get the knowledge I needed, not to earn a degree. Even looking back at my time there, there was no waste in learning at AIIT, and the conversations I had with classmates were full of hints. I immediately employed what I had learned each day in the workplace. In particular, project-based learning utilized my strengths as a business operator, and after gaining my team’s approval, I simultaneously proceeded with a project as a learning experience in addition to its commercialization at my company. With this synergy, I was able to build a system that increased the satisfaction of both users and staff at nursing care facilities. This system, which provides users with inexpensive services and pays staff above average wages, has been criticized by the existing industry as unconventional and unfeasible, but it has already been put into operation.

From service design to company design

Six months after graduating from AIIT, I launched a new company to help seniors work and earn higher incomes. I have pulled out of managing the residential care home based on the system designed in project-based learning, and am now involved as an investor. After my two years at AIIT studying service design and management, I became interested in designing the company itself, including the desire of management and employees to work. Because of this, I also planned in advance for the new company to have no sales for the six months until I had what I considered to be the perfect management system up and running. I now enjoy not the immediate sales, but throwing stones against the norms and rules established by society.

Mr. HORI Takashi

PROFILE
Representative Director of Leap Co., Ltd.

Graduated from Meiji University
Completed the Master　Program of Innovation for Design and Engineering in 2016

The seed of a business sprouted from AIIT

I started my own company while studying at AIIT after accelerating the execution of my plans.

I joined AIIT in anticipation of starting my own company in the future. Starting a company requires the creation of attractive services not available at the time. I wanted to acquire new knowledge and unique skills that would further develop my expertise in personnel development and organizational reforms, which I had accumulated over many years. I considered the two years at AIIT as preparation for starting a company. I planned on contemplating what business to realize before completing the course. However, a year and a half after enrolling at AIIT, I started my own company. This was something that I accomplished at unexpected speed.

Looking back, I think I felt this would happen soon after enrolling in the program. Soon after the career guidance I received when I was less than secure about being a student as a professional, the classes were filled with fresh surprises and hints that directly linked to work. Coupled with the serious attitudes of my classmates, who were very eager to study, AIIT's intense training curriculum brought a sense of intellectual tension into the classroom. This atmosphere sharpened my motivation to start my own company.

I built a new service through my classwork.

My antenna became sensitive to detecting new ideas from the class, which then led to business after starting my company. For example, from the quality engineering and reliability engineering classes involving statistical analysis and bigdata analysis, I got the idea to develop a method of evaluation and analysis for clarifying the challenges of skill development, as well as a way to apply the design method of monozukuri and kotozukuri, such as human-centered design, to personnel education training. In addition, I had an inspiration of the basic idea for the current services offered by my company.

Through these studies, I organized the characteristics of the services I wanted my company to offer. Also, through the lectures, which emphasized the practical and academic foundations, my sensitivity from my experience was endorsed by the learning with solid evidence, which supported my confidence and assurance in the directionality of starting a business.

Learning through PBL helped realize the achievements

The educational program that my company currently offers as personnel development solutions was constructed from a PBL project I worked on in the second year.

For companies to achieve results and develop personnel at the same time, I believe it is effective to design training based on theories and logic and implement active learning. PBL was a great place for me to realize these effects once again. After personally achieving and experiencing results, I can now offer my company's educational program as created through PBL with confidence.

I believe I would not be at where I am today without the professors, classmates, and the learning environment of AIIT.