Aiming to pave the way for the employment of global ICT human resources as well as the development of our global locations.

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

Since our foundation in 1978, we have been engaged in the development, training and operational support services of ICT (Information and Communication Technology). We utilize our technical expertise and skills in a wide range of fields to provide services for PCs, servers, storage, applications, system platforms and advanced security systems. Looking at the possibilities of computer development in ASEAN countries, since our foundation we have made great efforts in training personnel from Vietnam, India and China in cooperation with the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AOTS). Also, in 2019, we set up a subsidiary to further promote regional revitalization through close collaboration between industrial, academic, and government organizations. We aim to expand our cloud and IoT-based services globally for agriculture, tourism and home security. We applied for the internship program hoping to pave the way for the employment of global ICT human resources, as well as the development of our global subsidiaries through collaborative work with the intern.

We kept up regular communications with the intern during the system development process.

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

We cooperated with our intern to develop the "IoT weather sensor cloud system". The purpose of this activity is to verify the possibility of cloud system deployment by clarifying the differences in weather conditions between farms in Japan and in Vietnam, as well as the challenges faced by farmers. We first sent the IoT kit to the intern in Vietnam and built a program that collects data on temperature, humidity and pressure. We also asked our intern to find a local farm for installation of the IoT weather sensor while we proceeded with the project. Thanks to his effort, we could set it up in a vineyard near our workspace and conduct a verification test on data transfer from the weather sensor to the cloud. Learning our technology is not easy for someone without any background in IoT development. It did take his quite some time to understand it when he started. Also, we felt somewhat distant as our communication during the four-hour activity per day was limited to work, and there was no chance for us to learn about him. We have therefore decided to hold a one-hour online meeting every day. We took advantage of the fact that we were working remotely to facilitate communication and shared a translation tool on the screen to eliminate misunderstanding. This experience taught us the importance of casual communication at frequent intervals.

Remote collaborative development with partners abroad was proven to be effective and this improved our expectations for globalization.

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

The best outcome of the program is that remote collaborative development with partners abroad was proven to be effective. Through the experiment, we could verify that online tools enable collaborative development with members working in locations throughout the global network. We overcame the language barrier by utilizing a variety of communication methods such as translation tools and programming languages. This time, the project was carried out in a team of five people, including the intern. Our employees were exposed to global talent and cultural diversity, which must have been a stimulus for them. Now, I believe that they have no reluctance in conducting remote collaborative development with partners abroad. In addition, we could explore the potential of overseas business development. The IoT weather center cloud system we developed with the intern can manage weather data in the cloud system for a duration from a few days up to a few months. This may help us predict seasonal changes in the climate and furthermore, deal with grape diseases in advance. We believe that the advancement of digital transformation in agriculture will speed up in the future. The intern possessed the excellent ability to adapt to new technologies. Also, his diligence and positive attitude improved our expectations for recruiting global human resources.