November 25, 2022 – Final Pitch 2022 marks the 10th year of the Appropriate Technology Course. The final presentation will be held this Saturday, December 10, at 1:00 PM at the Laboratory of Advanced Research A (SOGO-A) auditorium (A110). This year, different teams focus on improving students’ lives and developing tools for a sustainable educational system.
Students of the Ph.D. Program of Human Biology, Ph.D. Program in Humanics, and Frontier Medical Science have visited places in Kanto and Kansai regions to learn more about the issues they are trying to address.
Field Investigation in Kanto Region (Oarai) and Elevator Pitch Kansai Region (Osaka and Kyoto)
In the past six months, they have developed technology prototypes that were appropriate to the target user’s needs. They will be sharing their project’s journey and presenting its business potential. There will also be a demo showcasing user experience and how it is expected to improve the Quality of Life.
How to Get There
Laboratory of Advanced Research A [map: https://goo.gl/maps/F9iUK7YAMj3CM7oq9] is located in front of the Tsukuba Daigaku Chuo Bus Stop. It can be accessed via C10 and 10 buses from Tsukuba Center.
December 13, 2021 – The Final Presentation of AppTech 2021 was successfully held last Saturday. The online broadcast allowed students from different countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russia, and Vietnam to participate. The three teams launched their Kickstarter video and conducted a demo for the on-site and online audience.
Watch Their PRESENTATIONS
Project Story + Kickstarter Video + Public Demo + Business Strategy
Group 1 – BVAE
Because of their strong motivation to help people with visual impairment. BVAE received the Best Product Award. Judges were impressed that despite their limitations in technical skills, the group has managed to collaborate with experts to build their technology concept.
GROUP 2 – HARA STOPX
Their innovative branding strategy to raise awareness about the social issue of “chikan” or molestation in public transport made them win the Best Technology Pitch Award. The students also partnered with members of Kansei design lab and students from Future Skills, Russia to co-develop their prototypes. Their team managed to present two products having two different approaches to target potential customers.
GROUP 3 – MFDT
After their field research in Hyogo Prefecture which they have organized in cooperation with Northeast Asia for the Global Risk Mitigation Foundation, G3 focused on creating partnerships among different stakeholders in order to manufacture a working prototype. They discussed the issue with the concerned NPO and worked with people from the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences in order to develop MFDT. The Judges have given them the Stakeholder’s Choice Award due to their impressive collaboration activities.
December 6, 2021 – Final Pitch 2021 will be held this Saturday, December 11, 1:00 PM at the Faculty of Medicine Lecture Hall. Everyone is invited to this event. Three teams from the Ph.D. Program of Human Biology, Ph.D. Program in Humanics, and Frontier Medical Science will showcase the story of their prototype development to improve the Quality of Life (QoL) of their target users and how will they contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We also invited speakers that will discuss the impact of Appropriate Technology in education.
December 01, 2021 – The trailer video to invite students of AppTech for the Academic Year 2022 was launched. We hope more students will join us from Ph.D. Program in Human Biology, Ph.D. Program in Humanics, and Frontier Medical Sciences. We are also looking forward to welcoming guest students this year!
June 26, 2021 – AppTech Tsukuba was invited to conduct a lecture and workshop at Ibaraki University, Ami Campus. The lecture was held at the Center for Food Innovation Auditorium. The 49 students who participated the event are majoring in Food Sciences and they learned about the basic concepts of Appropriate Technology and how it is different in contrast to commercial technologies. For the workshop, the students were divided into groups and were given a problem for brainstorming. During the workshop students were encouraged to apply the principle of “design for extreme affordability”.
December 8, 2020 – After six months of the technology development journey, the students will present their outputs. We are glad to announce that despite this challenging year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students did their best to come up with a technology concept and its routes to commercialization (business plan).
Final Pitch 2020 is the final presentation of the Appropriate Technology Class. Students visited different places to learn more about the issues affecting people’s quality of life and built prototype technologies that they think are appropriate for the situation. During this event, students will share their motivations, technology development journey, and their vision for business opportunities. Final Pitch 2020 is open to everyone (online via Zoom). Please contact us for the Zoom Details (apptechtsukuba@gmail.com).
We invited Mr. Oshiro Yosaku from the Association for Aid and Relief Japan – Myanmar. He will be sharing his work experiences in developing countries and how simple technologies are changing the lives of people with disabilities that are supported by their NPO.
Event Details: December 12, 2020 (Saturday) 14:00-18:00 Laboratory of Advanced Research A (Tsukuba Daigaku Chuo Bus Stop) https://goo.gl/maps/d4ZWXnjdEapDFXmHA
Dear Appropriate Technology 2020 Students (and guests),
Good day, this is a message from the AppTech teaching team. This Spring Semester, our classes will be contacted online through Microsoft Teams. Below, you can find a link of invitation to the Microsoft Teams that you can access and join our online team:
We will have six (6) classes this semester to discuss the fundamental concept of Appropriate Technology (AppTech) as well as doing the necessary preparation for the field research activity. Our Teams meeting will be during Fridays (18:00 – 20:00) in the following schedule:
Class # 1 – June 12 Class # 2 – June 19 —No class on June 26— Class # 3 – July 3 Class # 4 – July 10 Class # 5 – July 17 —No class on July 24— Class # 6 – July 31
In AppTech, students develop the projects in groups. We must know each other to have effective teamwork; that is why Class #1 will be a “getting-to-know” event. For Class # 1, we request you to introduce yourself (5:00 minutes/ individual). We will use PowerPoint slides and share them via Teams. For preparation of the slides, I recommend you to add some images in order to tell your story more effectively.
Contents of Self-introduction: 1. General information about you (Nickname, laboratory, favorite food, hobbies, etc…) 2. What is your personality type based on the online test (https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test), and what do you think about it? 3. Show an image of the thing you are passionate about (anything is okay) 4. Show a picture of people you want to help (anyone is okay)
Lastly, I hope everyone will enjoy this class despite the current limitations we are experiencing due to this pandemic. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us, Irie sensei, or any of the TAs. This course has some available content online. You can visit them to learn more about AppTech and what to expect in this class.
In this class we discuss a more about the applied aspect of AT and prototyping. Students were given the Prototype Expenses Form for processing the prototype financial support, list of materials, target users and blueprint sketch. This form will help the students put in a logical order their ideas and projections about their prototype. After that we had the Blueprint Presentation from the three teams. Students presented many exiting and original prototypes. The blueprints were from ranges from Dengue educational tool-kits to futuristic grape magnet-carriers. The rest of the session was focused in the sustainability of the product and how some pioneers of the field (e.g. Paul Polak; The Death of Appropriate Technology) and our guest mentor (Engr. Felix Ipanaque) succeeded with their start-up companies. Next session will be focused in the appropriateness of the products and conceptualizing the business model of each team’s technology!
Another exiting class full of discussion and ideas! In this class we set the requirements of the Final Pitch and showed examples of how senior students did it. Final Pitch is the climax of all the effort and applied ideas to team’s project. During this presentation, the actual prototype will be presented along with an explanatory poster, and presentation of their “AT-journey” video.
Moreover, we discussed the 8 steps of AT Journey Tracker from Introduction to Businessmodel with a special focus on Consolidation. This was done in order to clarify to the teams the crucial aspects of identifying the Issue, target Users and What could you do from them. Finally, all three teams (Manila PH, Shiga JP and Yamanashi JP) presented their field trip findings and potential ideas. The session ended up with great discussion and useful feedback exchange between the teams. We are waiting for all the teams to give a shape to their ideas and present their blueprints in the next session!
AppTech will be offered to the new Ph.D. in Humanics Program. We expect more diversity in class this school year. The classrooms were also renovated to improve the learning environment. Also, a new room (4F-308) will be available for class activities like workshop and prototype construction.
The class have also prepared some equipment and tools to make the design and construction of prototypes much easier. These include solar-powered devices, drones, Arduino computer with basic sensors, drinking water filter, and thermo-generator among others. A 3-D printer will also be available for the student’s usage. We hope to build more exciting projects this school year!
AppTech 