NEWS
ICU Students Gained the Campus Venture Grand Prix National Competition
Update: March 3, 2023
First year ICU liberal arts students, Sei Omori and Noa Tanaka, gained The Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun prize at the 19th Campus Venture Grand Prix (national level) which was held on Wednesday, February 8, 2023 and organized by the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
Targeted towards students, the Campus Venture Grand Prix seeks ideas and business plans for new products and projects, and gives awards for exceptional plans with the aim of encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit as well as nurturing individuals to discover issues and seek out solutions.
The theme which the two ICU students applied for won the CVG Osaka first prize at the Campus Venture Grand Prix Osaka 2022. They then proceeded to the national competition where students who had won in the eight regional competitions gathered together, and the ICU students subsequently gained this prize.
The two ICU students participated in the business contest as members of "Focus on", a general incorporated association, which they established with other university students.
Theme of the award:
"Focus on", an app which supports children with developmental disabilities.
"Focus on" is an app which aims to remove the difficulties which children with developmental disabilities experience at school by using the app to increase self-awareness as well as sharing problems with others. The app is still in the testing stage, but repeated improvements made through user testing suggests that the app is near completion.
Comments from the award winners:
Sei Omori:
I am very happy to receive this award. We presented an idea which aims to create an environment where all students feel comfortable and are all equally able to receive an education. We focused particularly on supporting students who found it difficult to go to school due to their developmental disabilities and who had subsequently stopped going to school.
We have currently established "Focus on", a general incorporated association, and are working towards actually providing a service. As a first step, we are carrying out user testing of the app which we created with the cooperation of Tsugeno High School in Aichi prefecture. We hope that by winning this award, more people will learn about "Focus on" and that we will be able to reach a greater number of struggling students who are currently unable to attend school.
Noa Tanaka:
This award has made us aware that what we are doing is being acknowledged by other people and it makes us very happy. I started working on the development of "Focus on" since last spring, and through participating in this project, I sometimes felt my lack of ability and struggled to find a balance with my academic studies. However, being able to make even a small change in society through our actions is a valuable experience. Through my activities in "Focus on", I hope to continue making a small contribution towards the creation of a better society.