Teaching Tech and Entrepreneurship in Japan
Fixing Entrepreneurship with Education:
Entrepreneurship education, from tech bootcamps to product development intensives, have inserted itself into the general vocabulary of Silicon Valley. You’d know a few people who quit their jobs to study JavaScript for a few months, coming out with a new job and career if you live in the Bay Area or New York.
Not so much in Japan. In fact, not at all.
In a country where switching jobs is considered a risky move, where working for a startup is a sign of your inability to get a corporate job, technology entrepreneurship has taken a back seat to more traditional fields of work, stifling what creativity and ingenuity this land of the rising sun could have conjured into the world.
Until very recently, students were told to study hard in order to enter good universities, get a good job, and stay at that company until they retired. There are many small reasons adding up to one gigantic system that’s been in place since the 40s, and you’ll see very quickly how each of the following bullets reinforces other points:
- Seniority-based promotion system
The seniority-based promotion system made it so that employees were promoted based on when they joined and how old they were, with very little consideration to the actual value each employee contributed in an organization. - Lifetime employment
And because of this seniority-based promotion system, there was a heavy emphasis on unconditional corporate loyalty. During the post-war period of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, things were going so well that employees had very few reasons to leave your company for greener pastures (your company was most likely on that green pasture). - Lack of human resources movement
Due to the norm of lifetime employment, very few employees actually switched jobs, much less careers. Employees were incentivized to keep their heads down and do what they were told. And since they weren’t being evaluated on actual skill and outcome, what was the point in learning new skills or moving up in a career? - “Don’t rock the boat”
So what do you do when you are stuck in one company, move up as you get older, and without much result-oriented evaluation? You quickly learn not to rock the boat, no matter how positive the outcome may be. You maintain the status quo that will allow you to move up just like everyone else. Don’t try to do a better job than your boss, or try to jump ship, or your peers will think you as an overachiever (which never goes well in Japan), out of line, showing off, etc. - Anecdote: Someone I once talked to said that Japanese salarymen would rather show a 0 win, 0 loss, 10 draw result then a 7 win, 2 loss, 1 draw result, since losing at any point shows your inadequacy and history of failure. Imaging what kind of creative ideas this nurtures.
These are polar opposites of what Silicon Valley and other hubs of innovation encourage people in their ecosystem to do, from failing fast, trying new things, working in a diverse environment, etc.
Now, these points above are old-school perspectives from our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. And things are definitely changing — there is a burgeoning startup ecosystem across Japan, and these startups are raising billions of yen every week from investors who see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But changing a deeply-ingrained perspective takes more time, energy, and advocacy than you might have imagined, especially when society at large still operates on an archaic system that doesn’t fit into today’s economy. Let’s also not forget that a good majority of the Japanese population still benefits from this system.
And that’s exactly why Japan needs more bootcamps — if not to help launch the next rocket ship startup, to educate Japanese youth on the art of the possible.
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Sample Notable Entrepreneurship / Coding Bootcamps in Japan:
Code Chrysalis
Founded in 2017, Code Chrysalis is a 12-week, all-English immersive coding bootcamp aimed at “building autonomous and versatile software engineers” who are ready to take on software engineering roles at up-and-coming startups. Not only does the 12-week curriculum teach foundational skills in technology, but also industry-specific tech talks to understand the rapidly changing technology environment. One week towards the end is dedicated to learning an entirely new coding language of the students’ choice in order to teach how to pick up new skills in this ever-changing environment.
Kani Munidasa, Founder of Code Chrysalis, was himself a former graduate and contributor to HackReactor, a San Francisco-based coding bootcamp. He grew up being a fan of Japanese electronics products, but knew that it had been experiencing a steady decline in global competitiveness.
So instead of offering a cookie cutter coding bootcamp, he also added an English-slant, and an opportunity to instill a Silicon Valley-like mindset for his students. In short, Code Chrysalis aims to teach not only the technical skills to become a developer, but also the mindset to constantly adapt and compete in the ever-changing tech landscape, in English.
Monozukuri Bootcamp (FabFoundry)
Monozukuri Bootcamp is a bootcamp for hardware startups, with an added product demo day in both Kyoto and in New York. The bootcamp is sponsored by IBM (New York) and Kyoto-based Makers Boot Camp, a hardware VC and makerspace. The idea behind this bootcamp is Monozukuri, of craftsmanship. A combination of “mono” (thing) and “tsukuri” (production), the Japanese term signifies a focus on each physical object being created at that moment in time.
The bootcamp selects a small number of hardware startup teams with prototypes to run through their six-week program. As part of the curriculum, they mingle with Makers Bootcamp members and local manufacturing experts in one of the biggest craftsmanship capitals of Japan. A network of 100 prototype experts from the Kyoto Shisaku Net is part of the appeal, along with a demo day with potential investors both in Kyoto and New York.
While the bootcamp is geared towards non-Japanese teams, it has taken Japan’s national obsession with small-scale, independent creators and mixed in the latest tech venture capital flare. Providing their expert network, and opportunities to mingle with investors and Japanese VC community members, while not strictly educating Japanese founders, will continue to open up people’s minds about Japanese entrepreneurship environment (especially in hardware), driving funding and talent back into Japan.
Kyushu University Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
Nestled in the economic hub of Kyushu island in the south of Japan, Kyushu University’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp aims to educate next generation leaders not only in pure startup building, but innovation in industry, academia, and government. Funded by alumni Robert T. Huang, Taiwanese founder and retired chairman of SYNEX Corporation, it has adapted the “24 Steps to a Successful Startup” by MIT Bootcamp to educate its participants about technology and team building, as well as general leadership skills to spot and act on global opportunities.
With MIT-based instructors to support their cause, participants matriculate through a 3-month prep period where they learn about marketing strategy, finance, design thinking, and other core disciplines, culminating in a 10-day rapid prototyping & business planning session, and a pitch to potential investors in the US.
What is notable about this bootcamp is its focus on teaching innovation through an entrepreneurship lens which aims to develop world leaders rather than exclusively entrepreneurs. In a mature nation like Japan, with its myriad social structures in place, perhaps there is more urgent need to create leaders to change the bureaucratic machine from the inside, rather than completely disrupting, and rebuilding from the ground up.
Bonus: TECH::CAMP
TECH::CAMP is less a bootcamp, and more akin to a Netflix for technology education. From as low as ¥12,800 (~$110) a month, students can pick from a long list of topics to learn the latest in technology, from web design to VR development.
With over 10,000 enrolled students coming from all walks of life, TECH::CAMP boasts 98% satisfaction. Along its users are university students who augmented their theoretical knowledge with practical skills; the President of Japan Taxi, who experienced first-hand what mobile app building entails; and an entrepreneur who, frustrated with the app a contractor built, decided to learn how to build his service himself.
In addition to course content, TECH::CAMP offers career counseling and course mentorship, adding a social aspect to learning to keep students engaged.
