In 2019, the Hult Prize started at KUFS with the first on-campus program featuring 12 diverse student teams in a social entrepreneur business pitch competition.

Over the years, the Hult Prize business competition has served to launch Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-based start-ups from universities around the world by providing students with opportunities to re-think business from both an economic and social perspective. In fact, foreign media have referred to the Hult Prize as the “Nobel Prize for students.”

Yet, this year, the Hult Prize suspended the official competition. Nonetheless, the Hult Prize social entrepreneur business pitch competition remains highly relevant and of interest to students so enterprising KUFS students decided to host their own “Business for Good” pitch competition this year on December 19 at KUFS.

In preparation for the “Business for Good”pitch competition, student leaders have led information sessions and workshops in October. In a recent workshop, students imagined how to develop business ideas to solve social issues. As a result, students gained practical knowledge and experience and three student teams emerged. These three teams are now preparing for their final pitch competition at KUFS.

More workshops are planned for November and December to support participants in their preparation for the December 19th business pitch event. To learn more about the “Business for Good” competition, workshops and information sessions as well as KUFS student participation in past Hult Prize competitions, please visit us on the web!


Hult Prize KUFS Website: https://www.hultprizekufs.com/

Hult Prize KUFS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hultprizekufs/

Hult Prize KUFS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hultkufs

The website is complete! — Ukyo Ward & KUFS “Ukyo Voices” project

Ukyo Ward and KUFS have been working together on the project "Ukyo Voices” since April, and the website has now been completed and released on today 10/1! Check out this link or use the QR code on the left to see this great website packed full of really interesting item about the people and places of Ukyo Ward.

This project was carried out to commemorate Ukyo ward’s 90th anniversary, with 15 students from the Eibei, Department of Global Tourism, the Global Studies Department and Gaidai Nishi High School participating. There are three main sections of the website and the students engaged in the following three activities:

[Interviewers (12 students)]
Interviewed 6 organizations and 6 individuals in Ukyo Ward in pairs, and wrote articles in Japanese and then translated them into English using Mirai Translator. The translation was checked by Japanese teachers and proofread by native-speaker teachers.

[Photographers (2 students)]
Visited various places in Ukyo Ward to take photos.

[Website production (2 students)]
Created the project website using Word Press. The website is completely bilingual in both Japanese and English.

Posters with the website link and QR codes are placed not only around the university but also in various places in Ukyo Ward. Please help us share the link and QR code of this blog or website so as many people as possible can enjoy it!

sampai has started a crowdfunding on "みっけ！KYOTO (MIKKE KYOTO)", a purchase-type crowdfunding program run by Kyoto Shinkin Bank and Daimaru Kyoto Store.

MIKKE KYOTO is a project to support initiatives that contribute to improving the attractiveness of Kyoto. sampai was selected as the first company to be featured in "MIKKE KYOTO" in recognition of its efforts to reuse industrial waste, collaboration with local businesses, and organized an event "mono-gatari."

sampai sells accessories based on the concept of "reducing industrial waste and weaving thoughts", and aims to build a platform that connects local businesses and individuals such as creators in order to expand the "possibilities of industrial waste".

As a first step, through this crowdfunding project, sampai will create a website that will feature companies that produce industrial waste and their stories. The details of the website can be found on the sampai crowdfunding page, so please take a look.

Also, you can read the story of each member of sampai on the attached URL page, including our thoughts on the challenge of crowdfunding, the motivation and purpose of building the website. Please take a look.

This is a crowdfunding project in which sampai will spin the "stories" of businesses and find new possibilities for "reusing industrial waste". We look forward to your support.

Official release: https://www.value-press.com/pressrelease/280358
日経新聞：https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUF244O50U1A920C2000000/

We are pleased to announce the new publication "Understanding United Nations Security Council ("UNSC") Reform; a Novel Approach from the Perspectives of Legitimacy, Efficacy, and Representativeness," co-edited by Prof. TAKEUCHI Toshitaka of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies ("KUFS"), Global Studies Department and Dr. and Ambassador Takahiro Shinyo of Kwansei Gakuin University. Prof. Takeuchi teaches Community Engagement, Conflict Resolution, Peace Design, Security Studies as well as Japan-US and East Asia Relations in the Department of Global Studies at KUFS. His research interests include international relations, arms control and disarmament, nuclear weapons and game theory.
The book examines the rise of nationalism as well as the path toward UNSC reform. More information is available on the publisher's website.
https://www.toshindo-pub.com/book/91718/

MUN July 17, 2021

We are very happy to report that our fourth Global Studies Model United Nations and its General Assembly event were successfully held at Morita Hall on July 17th, 2021 with over 120 first year Global Studies students deliberating on the agenda of COVID-19, including the three subtopics related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Decent Work and Economic Growth; Quality Education; and Ending Poverty & Hunger.

Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, together with other partner institutions, has a long tradition of teaching and organizing various events related to the United Nations, reflecting our motto of Pax Per Linguas, World Peace through Languages. As previously written about in this blog, one such event, JUEMUN (Japanese University English Model United Nations) is an annual Model UN event held for three days in June, that both KUFS students and faculty not only participate in, but also act as co-organizers.

Building upon this tradition and experience, when the Department of Global Studies was officially launched in 2018, the department's own Model United Nations course was determined as a required course for all first-year students. Model United Nations is a simulation of United Nations meetings, in which participating students represent one of the 193 UN member states, or countries, and work together, giving speeches, debating, negotiating, and ultimately writing resolutions for certain issues before the United Nations. Through simulating the roles of diplomats and as representatives of UN member states, student delegates are expected to be able to learn how to research various global and domestic issues, and how to formally strategize and come up with effective policies in order to improve the situations not only at the domestic level, but also at the global level.

The Global Studies Model United Nations course is offered to all GS freshman in the spring semester and is immediately challenging and difficult as students are introduced to both the work and challenges of the United Nations, an international organization working to bring all 193 members states together to share their concerns and, above all, their hopes and ideas for moving the world towards a better and more peaceful future. Students also are made aware of not only the progress that is being made towards those goals, but also the limits that international organizations, such as the United Nations, have.

The students were assigned a country team, consisting of 8-9 students, which represented one of the selected 15-member states, and tasked with working together to think, communicate, and behave as diplomats representing their countries. Through this course, the students, with mixed levels of motivations and sometimes confusion, learned the difficulty in identifying their country’s priorities and above all, in identifying common denominators that challenge the global community to ultimately agree upon.

In order to successfully complete this course, the students were required to think critically, demonstrate leadership, access and analyze information effectively, and to master both written and verbal effective communication skills, all while studying about their assigned country, the agenda topic related to COVID-19, and possible solutions to curb the impact of this pandemic on issues related to economic growth, the spread of poverty, and the loss of quality education.

The course requires students to put their minds together not only to share the situations within their assigned countries, but also through negotiations and therefore compromises, to set ambitious international goals for the international community to agree upon in how to effectively lessen the impact of COVID-19. The final documents, or UN resolutions, that were generated and agreed-upon through the final General Assembly event, are the direct results of sharing the concerns, values and above all, the hopes of all the UN member states.

As new students on campus, and also faced with taking most classes online, it is easy to imagine the maze of confusion they faced when dealing with such difficult issues in their spring semester. However, looking at the pictures from the General Assembly event at Morita Hall, students readily took on the challenge and actively engaged with each other to not only meet their instructors’ expectations, but wildly exceed them.

To those students who participated in this year’s Global Studies Model United Nations: Congratulations on successfully completing this challenging course. Job well done!