Creating a future with Deloitte Tohmatsu Group

Aoyama Gakuin University's School of Global Studies and Collaboration (Dean: Eric Matsunaga) educates　students into proactive international human resources with the expertise to create a ideal global society by empathizing, helping, respecting each other with people around the world. The Eric Seminar aims to formulate business concepts to solve social issues, particularly in the areas of the environment and diversity, and has been selected to participate in the Deloitte Tohmatsu Group's 'Women in Tech' program led by Okubo-san, CTO (Chief Talent Officer) of the Deloitte Tohmatsu Group. The joint program started in May 2023 with Deloitte Tohmatsu Group's 'Women in Tech' (a group that promotes women's activities in the technology field).

The relationship between Deloitte Tohmatsu and the Eric Seminar has deep relationship. Eric, Eric Seminar supervisor, being in the consulting industry for over 20 years as Partner at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting, leading in the media and entertainment industry across Asia. In a way, Eric and Okubo-san are former work colleagues. Of course, Eric would like to increase the opportunities to collaborate with Deloitte on various aspects in the future.

The theme of this year's program is "How to create a future where women can play an active role in the technology sector?". Over the course of a year, active professionals from Deloitte Tohmatsu will accompany the students in working on this theme, from formulating a concept to writing a proposal, to complete the concept. From the perspective of diversity, the gender of the students is not restricted this time.

In May, the teams learnt Deloitte's professional know-how through visioning sessions and various group work, and also conducted interviews with technology specialists, consultants and other specialists related to the theme. Each team compiles their proposals through group work, interviews and other fieldwork to gain professionals' perspectives and know-how.

Each group discussed over the weekend and spent a lot of time on this day. 4 months have passed in the blink of an eye since the project started, and this will be the first presentation of the concept. The venue for this presentation is the Deloitte Tohmatsu Innovation Park, a new activity base produced by Deloitte Tohmatsu to support next-generation businesses in all directions. A stage like the fountain in the fairy tale "The Golden Axe" appears. The students' nerves naturally rose at the novel venue, which overturned the image of an office space.

During the presentation, each group gives a presentation and a question-and-answer session. The questions are quite difficult and the presenters cannot be too careful. The groups will summarize their opinions and answer questions carefully. In the presentations, a wide range of issues were presented, such as the challenges of women's success in the technology industry and Japanese society, science universities where few women go on to higher education, how to change mothers who have a great influence on their children, higher education and the bias in entrance examinations, and a wide range of recommendations on how these should be addressed and what mechanisms and mindset are needed. The participants made a wide range of recommendations on how to deal with these issues and what kind of mechanisms and mindset are needed.

Finally, Eric and Okubo-san gave our comments, in which he emphasized the importance of thinking through the multiple perspectives. I told the students that ideas can be expanded by thinking about proposals that are not stuck in now but look five or ten years into the future. Okubo-san gave helpful and excellent advice for the next interim report, such as the importance of incorporating a “story” in order to better convey what you want to say in your presentation to listeners, the importance of a presentation flow that makes them feel discovery and emotion, and the need to clarify who is telling the story and what they want to say.

What did the students learn through the event by presentating of their ideas? The theme of women in technology is only the first step towards realizing a real diversity-oriented society. There are many different genders in the world, such as LGBTQ+, and many other diversity issues. I sincerely hope that this theme will be an opportunity to look at society and the world from a broader perspective and create a future where everyone can smile.

We are the Change !

Peace out,

Eric