Sophia Magazine vol.3 / SUMMER 2016

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Yuka motivated them to study English more.“I saw rsthand that there was a difference in educational environments and it depended on where one was born. At the same time, I found it problematic that the relationship that moti-vates them to learn is not a lasting one.”So for the competition, Yuka proposed an online system that would foster such learning relationships.At the beginning of February 2015, two months after her Rome trip, she received notication that she had been short-listed for the next stage. Her next task was to write a more con-crete 10-page plan by the end of the month. “Ten pages? I had no idea what and how to write.” Two weeks passed in vain. “Then, I thought nothing would advance without change, so I sought advice from friends who had experience in founding a company and from friends abroad. While listening to them, my vision for the plan, including the technical side, became clear.”Yuka’s proposal to provide an online tutoring system for young people around the world won the award for its viability as a solution to prevent poverty, conict, and disparity.After winning the €10,000 award, she took a six-month leave from university and went to the Philippines to carry out the project. However, she soon discovered that launching such a service in a country with a poor internet infrastructure was problematic. She came back to Japan and decided to build a platform facilitating the ow of advice from college seniors to high school students on how to make student life at university fullling and how to create a life-long career plan.“It will be completed by June this year and will go live in July. I aim to encourage interaction between Japanese and foreign university students and high school students from abroad, and university students from abroad and Japanese high school stu-dents about each other’s countries and things they are inter-ested in.” Although she has to overcome a high bar regarding “safety” and the protection of personal information, this does not dimin-ish Yuka’s motivation.“I want to eliminate the narrowness of thought that comes from economic, cultural, gender, and environmental differ-ences. I’m sure students talking with each other using this plat-form will make small changes. It’s grassroots development. I want to steadily expand this.”Yuka will graduate from Sophia University this September and attend the graduate school of Columbia University Teach-ers College, which has an educational cooperation agreement with Sophia. She will study how to improve the quality of edu-cation through technology and media. She is going to further develop the platform with the goal of “creating a world in which people’s choices and possibilities are not limited by their envi-ronment.” This is Yuka’s future.Equal educational opportunities for all young people around the world21Student

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