On January 31 at the Musashino Art University Design Lounge (Akasaka, Minato Ward), CASIO COMPUTER Co., Ltd. held a presentation announcing the outcomes of her joint industry-university project with Musashino Art University.

In this project, branded the “Nippon Multicultural Co-existence Promotion Project” in continuation from last year, Musashino Art University students covered persons and organizations that are active on the front lines of multiculturalism.
Videos were used to capture the course of interviews from their own particular viewpoints as they closely followed leading figures and organizations from five different areas, including an agency supporting employment of overseas students, an international friendship association, a restaurant owner who came to Japan as a refugee, and renowned personalities in the field of Japanese language education. To back-up the project, each of the teams was joined by a designer from CASIO who supported them in planning, shooting and editing their videos as a mentor.
Like last year, the project was also incorporated into 2019 second semester courses of Musashino Art University under the guidance of Associate Professor Jumpei Miyo, who specializes in Japanese language education, and Professor Shinichi Yonetoku, who specializes in video at the Department of Arts Policy and Management.

At the event, the students delivered presentations explaining what they hoped to achieve with their videos, and a documentary was screened that recorded the process of making the videos. A total of 38 organizations took part, including the Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language, publishing houses, Japanese language schools and university-related bodies.

This year, the event was held for the third year and registered a record number of 23 participating students, whose enthusiasm ensured a captivating presentation. Participants were highly appreciative of the five documentaries and the making-of video, offering comments such as “This really brings home the message” and “This video is close to TV broadcasting quality.”

Casio will continue to support Japanese-language study both by disseminating these videos and continuing our cooperation with educational institutions.