The institution’s new academic agenda should spur entrepreneurial and tech-savvy outward-looking mindsets, beneficial for a country with a strong cultural barrier.

In a bid to support and promote the growth of startups across the Asia Pacific region (APAC), a university in Japan has partnered an AI solutions firm to access its rich behavioral data in multi-disciplinary areas such as entrance examination strategies, job hunting support, branding and marketing.

The venture is expected to enrich the university’s academic activities and help to inspire students for entrepreneurial and technology-savvy mindsets in the real world.

Said Kansai University President Keiji Shibai: “Learning through collaborating with AI tools can help students build their strengths and have a huge impact in the world. With SQREEM’s technology, we can create bigger goals for our students and provide more challenges. We are considering starting with an internship program to kick off this collaboration.”

SQREEM, the AI  solutions company mentioned by Shibai, owns proprietary artificial intelligence materials that can facilitate the institute’s educational objectives. The firm’s ‘behavioural pattern data aggregator’ collects, analyzes, and creates a database of open data using its own technology to provide data analyses to more than 100 companies and government agencies across various industries.

Nurturing next-gen graduates

This is the first time a Japanese University or research institute has entered in a collaborative venture with the firm, and vice versa.

The company’s leadership will work together with the university to help foster the growth of startups in Japan and beyond, and will strengthen their information-sharing capabilities through AI. Said its Vice President and Head of Japan Business, Eugene Yoshioka: “Collaborating with Kansai University’s 13 faculties and graduate schools will mutually enhance both the university and SQREEM’s research capabilities. While solving current industry problems will be a challenge, it will equip us with the capabilities to resolve potential new problems before they even occur. We will continue to work towards building a clean and sustainable society for the future, and aim to become a leading company in the AI and IT fields by gaining stronger trust from the market.”

While their collaborative goals now include promotion of educational research and social collaboration, enhanced branding activities, and collaborations on startup ventures, both SQREEM and Kansai University will continue to revise and add new relevant projects to their partnership.