About ICT CONNECT 21

My name is Yamanishi, and I have been appointed as the new chairman of ICT CONNECT 21. I am deeply honored by this great responsibility and feel a sense of determination to fulfill my duties.
ICT CONNECT 21 is an “Open platform” that connects the public, private, academic, and regional sectors, aiming to further enhance the quality of education through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), and is supported by many people. Five years have passed since the launch of the GIGA School Initiative. With the introduction of one terminal per student and a high-speed network environment at schools, a new type of education is underway to foster autonomous learning as well as the ability to utilize information for the sake of the next generation of children. In June of this year, the government’s Education DX Roadmap 2.0 was released, which aims to realize the mission of Education DX: “a society where anyone can learn in their own way, anytime, anywhere, and with anyone. This educational reform is aimed at the coming digital society, including the development of learning environments for diverse learning, support for learners’ self-understanding through educational data, enhancement of teachers’ guidance, and reforms in work styles such as reducing the burden of school work and administrative work.
However, looking at the current situation, there are still regional and inter-school disparities despite the progress in hardware development.
British education scholar Michael Barber has proposed the “40-year gap theory of education reform,” which states that there is a 40-year gap between the education that children will receive in the society where they will be active in 20 years and the education that teachers and parents received 20 years ago. He emphasizes the importance of a paradigm shift from existing values to new values.The rapid progress of ICT, especially AI, requires a change in mindset that will also change the way we learn and educate. DX is being touted in every field, digitization is being used to improve the efficiency and quality of business operations by digitizing the analog that has been done in the past. We would like to advance toward digital transformation, which creates new value.
In this era, I believe that the role of our organization will become increasingly important. The key word is CONNECT. We would like to connect the national and local boards of education, school teachers, researchers, companies, various organizations, and everyone who aspires to better education through the informatization of education, and together with you, we will do our best to contribute to the future of children who will lead the next generation with our knowledge and passion from diverse perspectives.
I sincerely appreciate your continued understanding and support.

Dr. Junichi Yamanishi, Chairman of ICT CONNECT 21