Students' Voices - science

Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, M2

Tatsuya Ogawa

Let's all get our hands moving “for now” to give shape to our ideas!

Course History

• Basic Entrepreneurship Organization Science (2020)
• Basic Entrepreneurship Strategic Theory (2020)
• Idea Battle 2nd (2020)
• Challenge & Creation (2021)
• Idea Battle 1st (2022) *3
• Idea Battle 2nd (2022)
• Idea battle 1st（2023）
• Idea Battle 2nd (2023)
• Challenge & Creation (2024) *Excellence Award

Comment

As you can see from the programs I have participated in so far, my college life has been immersed in QREC’s entrepreneurship education.
It all started in the fall of my sophomore year of undergraduate school. My friends and I were thinking about how many interesting things we could do with the millions of dollars we had received from a scholarship program on campus, when a poster for an Idea Battle caught our attention.
At the time, I didn’t even really understand what QREC was, and the few QREC courses I took were taken without knowing they were QREC courses. Naturally, I was applying for the grant. However, in retrospect, I was very fortunate to have a mentor who provided me with a lot of support, knowledge, and experience. Although my mentor was with me for only six months, he has continued to be a longtime friend, serving as an advisor to a research group I founded and helping me expand a business I started.
When you pick up a QREC brochure, what catches your eye are the grants of 100,000 yen and 500,000 yen! However, I think you will realize the value of the experience of “giving shape to an idea” by actually working with your hands.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the professors and staff of QREC and the Kyushu University Foundation for their generous support until the very end of my graduate studies.
Let’s all get our hands dirty “for now” to give shape to our ideas.

Faculty of Agriculture, B2

MATSUGI RYUTARO

I am confident that what I learn here will serve me well for a long time to come

Course History

• Introduction to Entrepreneurship (Spring) (2023)
• Ideas Lab I (2023)
• Self-Inquiry Studies for Careers (2nd semester) (2023)
• Idea Battle（2023）
• Global Seminar (English) (2024)
• Basic Entrepreneurship Organization Science (2024)

Comment

Entrepreneurship does not equal entrepreneurship.”
This was the first thing that was communicated to me in the QREC lectures and the biggest thing I learned in the lectures.
I believe that entrepreneurship is about taking ownership of your life. I think that the QREC lectures are always structured around that entrepreneurship. Therefore, every time I attend a lecture, I am confronted with myself.
Among the many lectures, I especially recommend the “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” course. This lecture provides an opportunity to objectively analyze how one’s inner self has been formed and to think about various things from different perspectives. I am convinced that the ideas learned or acquired in these lectures will be useful for a long time to come.
QREC offers not only lectures, but also a system that financially and cooperatively supports students’ challenges and aspirations. Thanks to this opportunity, I have been able to pursue my own interests.
I hope you will take full advantage of QREC and learn a lot from it!

School of Design B4

Otsuka Toshiro

This is a valuable place to meet students from different backgrounds and broaden your horizons

Course History

• Global Seminar (English) (2024)
• Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (2024)

Comment

My involvement with QREC began when I had a chance to meet Dr. Kaneko in one of our support projects.
As a transfer student from a technical college, QREC was a valuable place for me to meet students from different backgrounds and broaden my perspective.
I am working on a “game for the fun of making games” and attended the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp to discuss the business aspects of this concept. At first, I was averse to thinking about the business aspects of games. However, as I discussed the future of the product with my peers, I realized that the business aspect also has a lot in common with the fun aspect.
At Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, I also experienced my first pitch in the U.S., which made me feel closer to the world. The world of entrepreneurship and business, which once felt like a “foreign country,” now feels as close as “within the same town,” which is a big change.
QREC was a slippery runway for me. It was very slippery and I sometimes fell on my butt, but I did not crash. I would recommend it as I think it will help you learn a sense of balance.

School of Science Department of Physics B3

Mariya Chechotkina

I felt as if I had been reborn as a different person, and I grew a lot mentally.

Course History

• Global Seminar (English)（2023）
• Applied Entrepreneurship Organization (2023)
• Basic Entrepreneurship Accounting and Finance (2023)
• Basic Entrepreneurship Marketing (2023)
• Basic Entrepreneurship Organization Science (2024)

Comment

I started taking courses at QREC because I wanted to learn the basics of entrepreneurship and organizational management and broaden my perspective for the future. Among them, I especially recommend Prof. Yamakawa “Global Seminar (English). It is only a two-day lecture, but you can learn a wide range of topics in depth, from the fundamentals of “what entrepreneurship is” to how to deal with failure and how to build a mindset. Each time I took the class, I felt as if I had been reborn as a different person, and I was able to grow mentally and emotionally. Mr. Yamakawa is energetic and motivates his students. I have attended the course two years in a row, and I hope to attend it again next year. QREC also offers a wide variety of other courses, such as accounting, finance, organizational theory, and marketing. You can choose the course that best suits your interests and goals, and you are sure to find the right one!　(The photo above was taken with Prof. Yamakawa)

Faculty of Agriculture B1

Sekine Kenjiro

It gave me an opportunity to look at society and my future from different perspectives and think about it.

Course History

• Technology Marketing Gaming (2024)
• Entrepreneurship Career Design (2024)

Comment

As the spring semester ended and the summer semester began, I had some free time after quarter courses ended and I searched for courses that piqued my interest and found some interesting intensive courses. Since the registration period had already ended by this time, I needed to find an intensive course if I wanted to earn credits. I learned that it is important to anticipate the thinking of other companies and how to read in detail the various numbers in various market research reports in cooperation with team members in order to better match the company’s products to customer demand. I felt like I was getting a glimpse of the corporate efforts of companies around the world at twice the speed. Technology Marketing Game are recommended subjects, but so is Entrepreneurship Career Design. Each lecture in the Entrepreneurship Career Design course is taught by invited lecturers from different fields, and the students are encouraged to look at society and their own future from different perspectives. We highly recommend that undergraduate students who have free time to attend this lecture should do so.

Faculty of Engineering, B3

Sakoguchi Koki

Very good as a first step in starting something you are interested in.

Course History

• Co-creation Practice with Industry on Ideathon / Hackathon（2023）
• Technology Marketing Gaming (2024)
• Digital Fabrication Tutorial (2024)
• Idea Battle 2nd (2024)

Comment

The classes in my major department were mostly classroom lectures in specialized fields, so I decided to take the practical QREC classes. All of the classes are friendly to first-time students and are a very good first step in starting something you are interested in. Also, in the Idea Battle, the idea we had when it was accepted did not work out, and after mentoring, we changed our idea several times. In the end, we only created part of the product and did not complete it, but we were able to learn how to think in a social problem-based manner without being limited by what we had learned at QREC or in our major classes.

Faculty of Engineering B4

MANABE Shotaro

The practical skills I have gained here have been of great help not only in my business and research, but also in my daily life and relationships.

Course History

• Technology Marketing Game（2023）
• Challenge&Creation (2024)
• Acceleration Program (2024)

Comment

I first became interested in business and entrepreneurship when I took a course at QREC, “The Technology Marketing Game,” which I took lightly and found more interesting than I had expected. I was then selected for the Challenge & Creation (C&C) and Acceleration Programs, which gave me the opportunity to experience many hands-on opportunities.
The most impressive of all was the learning I gained through design thinking. I was able to learn the process of uncovering issues that users themselves were unaware of and finding solutions in a practical way through repeated failures. The ability to verbalize issues, which I developed through this process, has been a great help not only in my business and research, but also in my daily life and relationships.
I recommend the QREC Acceleration Program. In this program, you will learn through lectures and workshops the general flow of the process up to proof of concept. You will also receive valuable feedback on your ideas from a diverse group of people, including entrepreneurs and investors.

Graduate School of Design M1

Kenta Motoyashiki

Abundant opportunities to gain diverse perspectives and valuable experiences gained through interactions

Course History

• Entrepreneurship Career Design (Student Comittee Member) (2021)
• Lean Startup (3-year TA)
• Challenge & Creation (2021)* Grand Prize
• Challenge & Creation (2022) *Excellence Award

Comment

My motivation for applying to Challenge & Creation (C&C) was my goal of competing in iGEM, an international synthetic biology competition. However, I was shocked to hear during the C&C selection process that “it is not enough to perform well in the competition.” In C&C, we must always be aware of how much impact we can have on society, whether we really need it now, and whether our experiments have become mere tricks. We had a very great responsibility for the funds we were allowed to use, especially in terms of considering the people who had “financed” our activities. In this sense, I felt that C&C is different from mere support for students, and that it is a place that requires meaningful activities. If you want to know more about QREC, I recommend the Entrepreneurship and Career Design course that I was involved in administering. The course is a great way to learn what you need to know right now.

Graduate School of Economics and Management, 2nd year

Keisuke Tomomori

A "value creation" perspective that can be applied to any type of work

Course History

• Advanced Lecture in Idea Evaluation (2024)
• Kyushu University Festival Entrepreneurship Experience Program (QSHOP) (2024)
• Advanced Lecture in Core Competence Management (2025)
• Technology Marketing Game (2025)
• New Business Creation (2025)
• Advanced Lecture in Venture Finance (2025)
• Global Seminar(English)(2025)
• Advanced Lecture in Technology Based Entrepreneurship (2025)
• Advanced Lecture in New Value Creation (2025)

Comment

QREC classes are a place where you can seriously learn about “value creation” by sharing ideas with peers from diverse backgrounds, from undergraduates to working adults.
I usually live my college life while working as a working university student. I took various QREC classes with the motivation of wanting to run my own business in the future, but the tips I learned at QREC were not limited to those who wanted to start their own business. I realized once again that no matter what type of work you do, the essence of “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and providing the value or service that is being sought” is common to all. I feel that the most attractive point of QREC is that it enables us to have such “multifaceted viewpoints that can provide clues to solving problems.
I took classes such as Advanced Lecture in New Value Creation, Advanced Lecture in Technology Based Entrepreneurship, and New Business Creation, all of which brought together members of different fields of expertise and ages to seriously think about value creation. From basic knowledge of entrepreneurship to in-depth knowledge of the business domain, all of the lessons are so memorable that I can recall them immediately.
Frankly speaking, it was a shame to graduate…. Please experience the high quality classes that you can take because of the blessed environment of Kyushu University while you are still a student here.

School of Interdisciplinary Science and Innovation B4

Murota Mei

Combining knowledge with practice, learning leads to action.

Course History

• Basic Entrepreneurship Organization Science (2023)
• Self-Discovery for Career Design（2023）
• Entrepreneurship Career Design (2024)
• Venture Finance (2024)
• Kyushu University Festival Entrepreneurship Experience Program (QSHOP) (2025)

Comment

I participated in a program that views the school festival as an opportunity to start a business. My motivation was to try to create something that people would enjoy through knitting, which is my specialty. I branded the knitting I had been doing as a hobby under the name “Kinari no Mori” and tried my hand at selling goods made from yarn and craft bands.

Through this experience, I learned especially the managerial viewpoint of “how to create value-added products while keeping costs down. From the selection of materials to packaging, we balanced cost and quality while devising a pricing structure that would make the product accessible to customers. In order to ensure profit generation while minimizing risk as much as possible, we repeated simulations from the fundraising stage and carefully planned the flow of the product up to the day of sale. It was not easy to generate a profit while maintaining the quality of the products, but we were able to experience the real difficulties and fun of management.
The “venture finance” lectures I had taken the previous year were also very useful. By learning about the flow of money, the structure of account settlements, and the concept of profit calculation in advance, I was able to smoothly apply the knowledge to actual sales planning and pricing. I highly recommend taking the QSHOP and Venture Finance lectures together!

Graduate School of Systems Life Science, 2nd year of master's degree

LIANG SHUANG

An environment was established where researchers could confidently embark on new challenges.

Course History

• Challenge & Creation (2025) *Excellence Award
• Acceleration Program (QSAP03) (2025)

Comment

Through Challenge & Creation (C&C), we were able to systematically learn the perspective of how to connect research results to business and the basic knowledge and thinking required for startups.
It was very meaningful to experience the process of objectively reviewing and fleshing out my own ideas not only through lectures but also through mentoring and individual advice.
I also felt that the multifaceted support, including financial support, created an environment in which researchers could take on new challenges with peace of mind.
This is a valuable opportunity for researchers interested in entrepreneurship to receive support in both learning and practice.

School of Agriculture B4

Takeshi Yamamoto

QREC activities can start with what you like.

Course History

• Introduction to Entrepreneurship (2022)
• Self-Discovery for Career Design（2023）
• Idea Battle (2023 and 2025)
• Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (2025)

Comment

In the spring of my sophomore year, when I began to feel that a life of club activities, part-time jobs, and classes was not enough, I remembered the Introduction to Entrepreneurship course I took in my first year and began to actively participate in the program’s idea battles. Looking back, I am glad that unlike classes, part-time jobs, and internships, QREC activities allowed me to start with what I wanted to do, including the time I spent facing the question, “What do I want to do with my time as a university student? It was a good opportunity for me to think about getting out of the university and getting involved in activities outside the university.