Students' Voices

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.

When I was a freshman, I decided that I wanted to become an entrepreneur in the future, so I took a lecture on Introduction to Entrepreneurship, and from there I fell in love with QREC.
The first is the Global Seminar, where I learned from Mr. Yamakawa of Babson College that it is “okay to fail,” a concept that changed my stereotype of what it means to fail. The phrase “Action trumps everything” is one of my life philosophies. This mindset has enabled me to continue to take on challenges without fear of failure.
The second is QSHOP’s Entrepreneurial Experience Program, You can experience everything from company incorporation to shareholders’ meeting with no risk.
The third program is the Applied Entrepreneurship Marketing. The course is not just theory, but is very practical and is conducted through specific case studies based on actual business operations, making the three weeks go by very quickly. We form teams and give a presentation on the last day of the lecture. Our team consisted of three working adults and four students. We named our team “7-CROSS” and I was the team leader. I was able to achieve very good results thanks to the relationships that allowed us to talk without hiding words, the members who gave us great ideas, and the seniors who showed us the way and taught us from their backs.

I took the class because I was looking for practical learning. Many school classes were theoretical and I had no opportunity to apply them in my daily life after the class, thus my interest waned. through QREC’s classes, I developed a trial-and-error attitude. After recognizing the current level of myself and my team and setting a direction, I was able to learn the process of repeatedly making improvements through the feedback I received as we set specific goals and proceeded, which became a useful attitude even after the class ended, not just in work, but in life as well. Of course, in terms of skills, I learned accounting knowledge from the “QSHOP,” design thinking to create products from the user’s perspective from the “Lean Startup Exercise,” and implementation skills to make ideas tangible from the “Acceleration Program. I highly recommend QREC’s classes and programs to anyone who wants to step out of the existing framework and create new value at university!

I first learned about QREC when I spoke with the representative of the QSIP. I was interested in tea, so I was introduced to the QREC idea battle, and in the first semester of my sophomore year, my project was accepted with the theme of “creating a system to remotely manage frost protection fans”. I was able to get a glimpse of the skills and manners I will need when I enter the workforce, while doing something I love.
Some people start with classroom learning and others with hands-on experience, but I think that I gain input more efficiently if I experience and act first rather than think, so I recommend Idea Battle, Challenge & Creation, and Digital Fabrication Tutorial.
I think there are few other universities where you can learn entrepreneurship in a systematic way like at QREC. Whether you want to start a business in the future or not, you will be able to learn how organizations should be, how to be aware of problems, and how to solve them, which will be useful in the future.

Entering the world of entrepreneurship was a leap I took not just with ambition, but with the desire to transform my dreams into tangible realities. My journey began with a quest for understanding—the intricate dance of trial, error, and experimentation that entrepreneurship embodies. What is entrepreneurship? What are the different stages of a start-up? QREC didn’t merely serve as an academic cornerstone; it was the crucible that forged my resolve, teaching me the importance of design thinking, the necessity of interconnectedness within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the value of engaging with all stakeholders.

Belief in an idea, I learned, is merely the starting point. True progress demands action. The courses provided the framework, and the funding offered a stepping stone, but it was up to me to take the courageous next steps. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely path, marked by moments of doubt and isolation, yet the passion and fire within must remain undimmed.

QREC has been more than an institution to me—it’s been a family, a home away from home. It challenged me to strive for excellence, not just competence. Thank you for all the financial assistance to get my projects up and running, and advice along the way. I am immensely grateful to all the professors and staff at QREC; your unwavering support has been indispensable. As I continue on this journey, your cheers and encouragement will be my guiding light.

For those interested in witnessing the fruits of this journey, I invite you to take a look at my projects at:

Deat: deatjapan.com
READILY 冷デリー: reideli.com

If you are interested to connect, feel free to find my on LinkedIn or any other platforms I may be on!

Thank you, QREC, for being the catalyst of change in my life.