TAOYAKA Program held the 1^st International Symposium “Toward a Multicultural-Coexistence Society” on November 2^nd, 2014.

At the symposium, Program Director Masaki Sakakoshi gave an opening address, and MEXT Higher Education Bureau University Promotion Division Chief Tomoka Satomi delivered a guest speech. Hidenori Okahashi Program Coordinator explained the outline of TAOYAKA Program. Two keynote lecturers were present at the symposium. Mr. Shinya Ominami (Director, NPO Green Valley Inc.) gave a lecture titled "Kamiyama Project - for establishing a high-quality and creative place," and introduced the NPO’s activities to revitalize Kamiyama, a town in Tokushima Prefecture where depopulation is progressing, with cases of young people moving to Kamiyama and an enterprise opening a branch office in Kamiyama. Ms. Hiromi Tengeji (Representative, Kopernik Japan) gave a lecture titled "How to distribute technologies to last mile communities in developing countries" and introduced projects run by the organization to distribute low-cost technologies having appropriate qualities to recipients in less-developed countries facing various issues.

An active discussion was led among the two lecturers and TAOYAKA students.