A key pillar of Avanade’s Corporate Citizenship program is enabling the next generation of tech innovators and changemakers.

Our Avanade STEM Scholars Program is a key component of this commitment, offering guidance, training and mentorship to young people around the world. In Japan, for instance, our STEM Scholarship program invests in the future of young women. This program aims to close the gender gap by giving women access to resources that help them thrive in STEM fields and make powerful contributions to technology.

This commitment to making STEM careers accessible extends beyond just scholarships. We also sponsor a STEM course for Women’s Empowerment at Ochanomizu University, one of the top national universities in Japan.

Recently, as part of this course, we asked 42 students to take on the challenge of solving social issues through the power of people and technology, and from there they developed 14 functioning applications.

The course ended earlier this year, but for one team they were not limited to learning in the classroom; they went on to collaborate with a team from Avanade to further develop the app they had created.

The app was developed by a team of three students who were inspired by the idea of having fun while thinking of the unexpected, and that’s how ”Flash Mob Disaster Drill” was born.

(Momone Kanno (Faculty of Human Life and Environmental Sciences), Kazuha Hirata (Faculty of Humanities and Education), Asuka Sakakibara (Faculty of Letters and Education).

In preparation for earthquakes and typhoons that occur almost every year in Japan, they thought it was necessary to use technology to make changes and raise awareness of disaster prevention. They wanted to create a disaster prevention drill that could be enjoyed by everyone using it, so they included quizzes to help students check safe evacuation routes in buildings. The app also allows users to choose their current location to learn the appropriate evacuation methods through a quiz.

At the end of the course, the students continued to work on the app. In early March, they tested the app with Avanade engineers and university faculty to gather valuable feedback and insights in preparation for a university open day in April this year, where new students were also going to put the app to the test.

One of the app's creators, Moemone Kanno, shared, “There were a lot of things that we didn't know until we tried it, such as how difficult the quiz would be for the new students and whether we could move around the campus without getting lost. Having conversations with each team helped us recognize aspects of the app that could be developed more. I would like to further update it so that more people can use it on campus."

Our Avanade colleague, Takuma Baba, also gained a lot from the experience.

“As an engineer, I learned from the students' perspectives as they tackled issues,” Baba said. “I would like to proceed with preparations for the next financial year, so we can further enhance industry-academia collaboration between universities and companies."

Professor Yuji Ohta of Ochanomizu University, shared: "Avanade presented the lecture so well that I thought, 'If I were a student, I would have participated in it!' I think it gave confidence to students regardless of whether they were in science or humanities. By improving the prototype even after the class is over, I think it will eventually be an app that can be distributed to many people, which will lead to true social implementation. We will continue to do our best so that the course can be a catalyst for change.”

Avanade will continue to support the next generation of changemakers, and Ochanomizu University will be preparing to deliver an even more powerful course later this year. Stay tuned!