Kyotango City and iU have signed an agreement.

 ■Kyotango City and iU have signed an agreement.

Kyoto faces a sea. The northern end of the region faces the Sea of Japan. It’s called the Tango Peninsula.

Kyotango City and iU signed an agreement and held a signing ceremony.

Kyotango City said the agreement's mission is to revitalize the city's industries and promote ICT education.

The agreement's contents are comprehensive and promote education, culture, sports, industry, human resource development, and city planning/environment/life improvements through AI and ICT.

It is unusual for a university and a municipality to enter into a partnership of this magnitude.

Specifically, the mayor, Yasushi Nakayama, will become a "super-visiting professor" at iU, and a virtual laboratory will be set up in which iU faculty, students, and partner companies participate.

Ideas proposed include using ICT to solve Kyotango City’s issues, such as tourism promotion, and providing remote classes, such as programming classes, to elementary and junior high school students in Kyotango City.

The iU was established as an experimental university that allows all students to start their own businesses cooperating with 250 companies.

Although all students are on route to start their business, I think many students are interested in solving social problems and creating local communities, rather than wanting to get rich quickly by making a stock company.

I want to create the first model in Kyotango City.

I think we can promote human resource development and regional promotion through collaboration between the university and the region, involving faculty members, students, and partner companies.

I believe that there are things that can be created by directly connecting Tokyo and the regions.

Is it possible to expand this model throughout Japan and overseas?

That's my intention.

The signing was done by mayor Yasushi Nakayama and me, the President of iU.

Actually, mayor Nakayama and I have known each other for 40 years.

We were in the same class at university, and his name Nakayama was right after my name Nakamura, on the student name list.

The signing ceremony was also witnessed by "Carrot Cabbage," comedians who declared to live in Kyotango City from Yoshimoto Kogyo.

We wanted them to participate in this project for a lively launch.

Yoshimoto Kogyo has comedians living in each of the 47 prefectures in Japan and focuses on SDGs-like efforts to solve local issues by addressing them in “funny” ways.

Carrot Cabbage goes by the motto "Half Farmer, Half Comedian. They grow agricultural products in Kyotango-City and sell them in Kyoto in a “funny” way.