Students' Voices

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.

I began to look into QREC after seeing some of my good friends and seniors participating in the QREC program and seeing how much fun they were having.
However, because I found out about QREC so late, I was not able to get involved in the classes or the program very much, but I still had a meaningful time and was able to rethink my future plans. I wish I had known about it earlier (laughs).
I myself am an architectural design major, and although I had a strong education in design thinking and was unfamiliar with entrepreneurship and business, I have incorporated those ideas and am now struggling daily to commercialize my ongoing projects. I am still in contact with the people I attended the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp with in the QREC class, and I am glad I participated because I was able to expand my network and receive good opportunities from them. I think one of the advantages of attending QREC is that I am able to interact with people from completely different backgrounds.
Because I was able to participate in the QREC program and other programs, I was able to have an intense graduate school experience. I would like to make the most of this experience and push forward toward my goals. Thank you very much!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

Through QREC’s courses, I learned about the excitement of entrepreneurship. I learned about Lean Startup from New Business Creation, which led me to take the Lean Startup. Through the Global Seminar (English), I met Prof. Yamakawa of Babson College, who changed my values about failure. Through the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, I was able to visit Babson College and Silicon Valley and experience the world of entrepreneurship first hand. It was a very long trip, but I will never forget what I learned and experienced here. I will certainly make the most of this experience in the future.

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!

I was assisted by QREC in breaking through barriers in the initial phase of my project.
I first became aware of QREC through a senior entrepreneur who provided me with information as I was conducting various research in preparation for starting my own business. At the end of my sophomore year, I took a year off from school to work for a venture company that supported improvement activities in the manufacturing industry, working on a wide range of tasks from sensor development to data application. When I returned to school the following year, I wanted to do something that would make use of my experience since I was able to spend time as a student with a year of working experience in the industry. It was during this time that I learned about QREC and my idea was selected for the Challenge & Creation (C&C) program, which was followed by the Acceleration Program.
In addition to funding, QREC’s various programs provide support in the form of mentors who are knowledgeable in the field of the project. For me personally, this was very important, as I was able to understand the real needs and challenges of the actual clientele, which gave me a great basis for my project’s direction. I still go to my mentor’s office two days a week to verify that the system we developed meets their expectations. While it is very important to find clients who are willing to cooperate with us in the early stages of a project, it is also a matter of luck whether or not we can actually find such people, given that we have no track record of success. In this sense, we believe that the support we can receive in the name of QREC, especially in the early stages of the project, will be more valuable than monetary support.

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.

At the end of my junior year, a friend suddenly said to me, “I want to start a business,” which led me to participate in the Challenge & Creation (C&C) and Acceleration Program. I had never been involved in QREC in my life as a student before, but I remember that I was excited to participate in the program because I had just finished job hunting and had only a few credits left, so I thought, “I’m not busy, so I’ll do it.
In the Acceleration Program, I learned about the practical aspects of thinking, such as how to identify problems and develop solutions, and the techniques of making pitches. I feel that I was able to experience many things that I would not have been able to experience in my normal student life.
These experiences were similar to the skills that are required when one enters the workforce, which was a bit of a surprise to me, as I had thought that QREC was an organization for people who start their own businesses.
Although it will be tougher for me to participate in QREC activities because I will be working, I am truly grateful to the faculty and mentors who supported me through QREC activities and to my friends and team members who brought me along halfway through the program.