ETIC (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities)

Event Highlight Movie: ETIC's 30th anniversary on December 10, 2023 in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The place was buzzing with good vibes where veterans of our community mingled with the young and novice. Our team member Masa observed that reaching the 30-year milestone as an organization meant it could transcend generations. He was touched to see individuals who had been associated with ETIC during their student days visit the gathering with their children. It showed that ETIC is living up to one of its core values: human development.

Our team member, Naho, traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, last month to attend the Global Youth Entrepreneurship Summit. You can read more about her experience here. One highlight was the serendipitous encounter with participants from South Africa. Upon arriving at Nairobi airport, Naho met Abed Tau and his colleagues from South Africa. In Japanese, there is a word, en (縁), which can be translated as “bond” or “connection” in English. We often use this word to express our appreciation for meeting someone and to recognize the rarity and significance of such encounters. Embracing this connection, we are featuring Abed in this month’s newsletter and hope it will lead to future collaboration between the two countries.

The American Express INNOVATOR’s LAB for U30 has concluded!    This program, generously supported by the American Express Foundation, brought together 24 young entrepreneurs tackling societal and regional challenges. Over the course of five months, they delved into critical business challenges unique to the early stages of their ventures. At the closing session, participants reconvened after two months of hands-on practice to share their learnings, joys, struggles, and frustrations. Together, they transformed individual experiences into shared knowledge within the community.    The five-month journey was enriched by the active involvement of employee volunteers from アメリカン・エキスプレス American Express International, Inc. These volunteers supported and encouraged the 24 entrepreneurs, closely observing their transformative growth. Many volunteers shared how they were deeply inspired by the rapid progress of these entrepreneurs, creating an environment of mutual inspiration between participants and volunteers.    A heartfelt thank you to our dedicated mentors— 荻原 国啓 Kunihiro Ogiwara (Zero to One Co., Ltd.), 甲田 恵子Keiko Koda (AsMama Inc.), and Hyeongshik Lee (NPO Learning for All), —for their unwavering support of the participants’ growth. We also extend our gratitude to everyone at American Express International, Inc. for consistently backing these young entrepreneurs as they pursued their business aspirations.    In February 2025, the Innovator’s Lab will launch a new four-month accelerator program for women entrepreneurs, focusing on building businesses rooted in personal values. We’re excited for what’s next—stay tuned!    #イノラボ　#Amex #アメックス 

Mitsuhiko Yamazaki, our Director of International Partnerships, went to New York to attend a conference organized by Apollo Opportunity Foundation, while Naho Kawashima from the Social Innovation Team and Global Coordinator, went to Kenya to attend the biennial Global Youth Entrepreneurship Summit, organized by Youth Business International (YBI). It’s been more than two years since we launched the international team, and we are grateful for exciting opportunities to build relationships with like-minded counterparts overseas.

We are honored to have our efforts to support the development of the social sector leaders featured in the AOF 2023 Highlight Report. Our Director Mitsuhiko Yamazaki states as follows in the report: "As highly committed project members and ambassadors, our AOF Deal Team strives to deeply understand our perspective, contributing to every aspect of the project outcome. AOF's ETIC deal team has been actively engaged with our organization by providing pro-bono support, forming an advisory committee, participating in in-person events, and offering volunteering opportunities to Apollo employees.”

When was the first time you heard the word “overtourism”? It feels like we hear this word more often than before these days as Venice imposed an entrance fee for tourists taking a day trip, residents in Barcelona protest the influx of tourists, and a town in Japan put up a black barrier at a perfect spot to take a photo of Mount Fuji. (The barrier has been taken down since then.) There are places where the number of tourists has reached the saturation point, and the locals can no longer tolerate the crowds or their behavior. Chieko Tanaka, who lived in Kyoto as a student, didn’t fully grasp the situation being an outsider herself. However, she started to interview residents and local merchants, which led her to understand the trappings of becoming a major tourist destination. While tourists may boost the local economy, there is a price to pay. As a keen observer of the phenomenon, Chieko decided to launch an organization to tackle the problem while she was still a student. She came up with the term “Touristship.” Find out what this word means in the following interview. #entrepreneurship #socialimpact

We are excited to share a new video about our latest program supporting social sector leaders in Japan. While there are areas where technology may play a more crucial role in driving changes, we believe that human capital is the most important factor for impactful change in the social sector. Nevertheless, many organizations struggle to attract and retain talent, which disrupts their potential to scale and grow. Therefore, it’s crucial to invest in capacity building of the organization for sustainable impact. However, donors often overlook this perspective. According to the Doing Good Index 2024 report (issued by the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS)), capacity building is a common challenge not only in Japan but also across the Asia-Pacific region’s social sector. To address these structural issues, ETIC (Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities) launched our program in 2024 in collaboration with Apollo Opportunity Foundation and Commonlight. The program is designed to develop leadership skills and networks of middle managers working in organizations addressing disparities in opportunities for children, youth, and women. We are happy to share the first-year results, as the program gained wide recognition in Japan’s social sector: - Received 82 applications from 40 organizations - 32 middle managers participated in the program - 63% of participants were women - 50% of participants came from regions outside the metropolitan area We are grateful that Apollo Japan team has been our effective partner in every step and aspect of the program from curriculum design to recruitment, selection, and public relations, acting almost like an ambassador of ETIC. We are committed to investing in this long-standing issue in the coming years to nurture Japan's thriving and sustainable social sector. #socialsector #nonprofit #entrepreneurship

Have you ever wondered about the unique illustration at the top of our website? This embodies ETIC’s vision, where we have acted as a catalyst for 30 years in nurturing a diverse ecosystem of entrepreneurs that blends across borders to form a single planet. It was produced by “Mousou” Architects (Imagination Architects ), a Japanese emerging corporate brand agency. They specialize in creating "Vision Pictures," which convey a company’s purpose and philosophy in a single, intuitive image. What sets them apart is their creative process, which involves lots of executives and employees to help convey a company’s story in their own words—something often hard to achieve through words alone. Their clients are incredibly diverse, ranging from small manufacturing entities to national investment funds. The Pictures are used across corporate websites, recruitment brochures, novelty items, and even on office walls. Mizuki Takamatsu, the Founder of Mousou Architects, is a graduate of our accelerator program. Six years ago, when she participated in our program, she was already an emerging public speech professional appearing on television. Using words in public speech and using illustrations in corporate branding might seem like contrasting approaches. However, she found common ground in the process of structuring vast amounts of information into a single output. Her work, with such a background, embodies a unique originality that is distinct from traditional abstract art vision illustrations, conventional design, or infographics, and it is embraced by many organizations. Currently, she is interested in how these Vision Pictures are received by overseas entrepreneurs and business leaders. Feel free to share your thoughts or leave a comment! Mousou Architects: https://lnkd.in/gBjhg6tp #entrepreneurship

It’s all about engagement, isn’t it? Rie Honma works in the field of education and is engaging with the local community of 3,000 people. Her belief: the future of our children is the future of our town. While most rural communities in Japan face depopulation, she sees a different future — one where children are connected with residents, and their school life extends beyond the classroom walls. Inspired by her trip to London in April this year to learn about career education, she is going back next month to deepen her understanding of the work done by the career education coordinators. Her goal is to apply her learning to the workplace experience programs and to other career education initiatives in her local community. https://lnkd.in/gFR38mHC

A chance encounter can lead to life-changing experiences. This is what happened to Yoshifumi Nin. Back in spring 2015, shortly after joining a graduate program in public health, he met Sandeep Shakya, a cardiologist from Nepal working in Japan, at a welcoming party. They bonded quickly due to shared interest in access to healthcare and Yoshifumi’s thesis for his undergraduate degree was about Nepal. The following day, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Kathumandu. By the fall of the same year, Yoshifumi and Sandeep were in Nepal to provide temporary healthcare services to the area severely impacted by the disaster. This experience made them realize that temporary services from foreign providers were insufficient to truly help the people. Consequently, they aimed to establish a sustainable local healthcare access system and launched a nonprofit organization called ASHA, which stands for “Affordable and Sustainable Healthcare Access.” ASHA also means hope in Nepalese. https://lnkd.in/gifjzpKb