PL-1
SDGs and GIGAKU Education
Kazuhiko Takemoto
Director of United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS)

hree years have passed since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted as thecore of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the UN Summit on Sustainable
Development in September 2015. The international community has made a commitment to takeaction toward achieving the SDGs. Science, technology and innovation (STI) has been regarded
as among the most important measures in such efforts.
The 2030 Agenda articulates mechanisms of periodical review and follow-up on implementation
toward achieving the SDGs, and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development(HLPF) is organized each year under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC). Recognizing the important role of STI for achieving the SDGs, the STI Forum isheld annually at UN Headquarters, and the outcomes of its discussions are reported to the HLPF
every year.
Prior to such reviews at the global level, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia andPacific (ESCAP) reviews progress towards achieving the SDGs at the regional level. ESCAPorganizes the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) in March every year. Inaddition, Member States in the region have also developed their own implementation mechanisms
for achieving SDGs, reflecting their national circumstances.
Japan has also committed to a wide range of actions toward achieving the SDGs. The SDGs
Promotion Headquarters was established in 2015, which is chaired by the Prime Minister andcomprises all of the members of the cabinet. The SDGs Round Table Meeting was established toreflect voices from a wide range of stakeholders. The SDGs Implementation Guiding Principles
were formulated in December 2016 to provide an overall framework and set priority areas. TheSDGs Action Plan was also decided in December 2017, which specifies the three priority areas,namely, (a) Society 5.0 in support of STI, (b) Local revitalization and (c) Health and genderbalance. In priority area (a), the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) has revised its Charter ofCorporate Behavior and is calling for each company to take action toward addressing
sustainability.
It is clear from these developments that STI plays a crucial role in mobilizing knowledge, scienceand technologies for sustainability. It is extremely important to train future generations who will
engage in the fields of science and technology in the years to come.

PL-2Collaboration Equals Future of Education: Uncertainty and Opportunity in theDisruptive Technology Era
Sampan Silapanad
Vice-president of Western Digital (Thailand) Co., Ltd, Co-Chair &Executive Committee Member of Advancing Cooperative & Work-integrated Education (WACE)
sampan@wdc.com

Facing with the current trend in the world that sees the shift from common to the new digitaltechnologies of the industry 4.0 era, the drastic change of technology is causing the new dynamics
in desired skills of the real-sectors as well. Today’s businesses around the world are having moreturbulent time and unpredictable scenarios where some jobs are fading out, new jobs are emerging,
unemployment rate is getting higher, and business turn-over is much faster than in the past. As
a consequence, the desired skills of the workforce may change quickly and unimaginably, as
evidenced by the increasing preference for a set of certain soft skills over hard technical skills.
Today, technology is a key enabler that drives disruptive changes of the society, such as the way
people communicate, transport, deliver goods, and receive and analyze information, all of whichleading to dramatical changes in the way of living. Education is one aspect that receives such a
big impact from this phenomenon. The current way education is offered may not be relevant andresponsive to the volatile and challenging circumstances of the changing human resource
demands. Workplaces which normally recruit new talents based on academic records may haveto play a new and crucial role in helping to train the new workforce for the country and the world,
too.
Western Digital (Thailand) Co., Ltd. is a world class provider of wide-range electronic data
storage devices such as Hard Disk Drive and Non-volatile Storage. As a large firm of more than
70,000 employees world-wide with a strong belief in collaboration as the future of education, WD
has been involved in Cooperative Education (Co-op) for more than 10 years since 2007.
More than 200 students a year on average from local and overseas universities have participatedin the co-op program at WD. Almost 2,000 students have created more than 900 projects in bothtechnical and non-technical areas.
WD also runs another program called ‘Research Collaboration’ in which the company works withresearchers from universities and government institutes to conduct collaborative research anddevelopment projects related to WD's processes and products, especially in science andengineering areas.

The research projects under this Research Collaboration program are usually led by professors orMaster's or Ph.D. students who always bring Cooperative and Work-Integrated Education students
to participate in the team. This kind of collaboration creates a systematic work system in which
the students could learn from actual research activities. As of mid 2018, WD has worked with 9government institutes and more than 20 universities, involving more than 300 researchers andcovering more than 200 research projects.
Although the main purpose of WD in doing co-op and Research Collaboration is to develop
quality human capital both in terms of their hard and soft skills from very early stage to be readyfor real working environment, it turns out that the Return on Investment (ROI) of the projects
created by these students are more than 300% in financial perspective. Many projects have a bigfinancial impact, such as cost saving resulting from a smarter work flow, an easier work process,and, more importantly, better quality of life for employees in a long run.
As for the recruitment benefit, this co-op has been found to be the best method for WD to get thebest fit persons to be hired as employees. During the co-op term, this is the best time that thestudents could sharpen their hard and technical skills, nurture their soft skills, express theirinterests, showcase their talent, and bring out all of their potentials for the work projects given tothem. This co-op term is the best chance for the students and the company to get to know eachother before making decision to work together.
To move forward, it is recommended that WD and other companies have to change the way they
are dealing with education to be even more proactive and directive into the specific areas ofknowledge. This trend has already been influential at many big hi-tech companies, such as Googleand IBM where they are already arranging specific education programs and hiring employees
without fussy consideration on qualifications. The trend the world is seeing us that performing
well academically may not be desirable anymore whereas students with ‘new smart’ traits
possessing characteristics of ‘new culture way’ can be the asset that any business will be lookingfor instead.

PL-3
Engineering Education at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW-SoE)
Switzerland, Present Status and Future Challenges
Wolfgang Kickmaier
Zurich University of Applied Sciences – School of Engineering, 8401 Winterthur, Switzerland,wolfgang.kickmaier@zhaw.ch

Established back in 1874 as the Winterthur Technical University, the ZHAW School ofEngineering (ZHAW-SoE) is a centre of education steeped in tradition. Today, it is one of eight
departments of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. The ZHAW School ofEngineering emphasizes topics, which will be relevant in the future. 13 institutes and centres
guarantee high quality in education and applied research & development. We provide ascientifically based education (8 Bachelor programs and a Master program), with strong practicalelements such as project work in cooperation with industrial partners and an interdisciplinary
approach. The model “Universities of Applied Sciences” is seen as a success and is wellrecognized in the higher education system in Switzerland.
Based on a brief overview of the Swiss education system, the current state of theengineering education at the ZHAW-SoE will be outlined. Specific elements of the curriculum
and the students profile before entering the University of Applied Sciences, believed as “successfactors” are highlighted. Further, some main results of our project “Qualification Graduates”
are briefly discussed. Here we look e.g. at competences / skills of our students and how thesematch with the needs of the students, industry and society.
Finally, also on the basis of the findings of the “Qualification Graduates” project,international developments, future challenges and demands for the industry are outlined.
The conclusions focus on the typical “next generation engineer profile” and, how theSchool of Engineering responds with the structure and content of the curricula to the expecteddevelopments and needs of the society. The current approach combining pre-study industrial
experience with the practical orientated and scientific education at the ZHAW - SoE is regarded
as very successful. Thus, no drastic changes in the education structure for engineers at the SoE
are expected, but of course, we will constantly optimize the education of our future engineers.

PL-4
Distinctive Feature of GIGAKU Engineering Education Based on SDGs
Kazunori Sato
Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan 940-2188, sato@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp

Nagaoka University of Technology (NUT) aims to promote advancement intechnologies particularly focusing on a contribution to the welfare of the earthfriendly human society. NUT has been providing a unique education for a newgeneration of engineers in interdisciplinary technologies through regional andinternational collaboration. The word “GIGAKU”, which stands for “GijyutsuKagaku” in Japanese, was proposed by Dr. Masamitsu Kawakami, who served as
the first president of NUT from 1977 to 1983. President Kawakami insisted thatmodern engineering should combine both seed- and need-oriented technologies
stemming from originality. He also emphasized that both students and faculty
staffs should recognize the necessity of vitality to overcome difficulties and services
to society. Our university motto “VOS” comes from the first letters of these threewords. GIGAKU is therefore a substantial fusion of science and technology withcreativity and innovation. The GIGAKU Engineering program has been always
improved with the times for producing engineers equal to the demand of the 21stsociety and industry.
Our new engineering program has recently embraced the challenge ofpromoting the “GIGAKU SDG (sustainable development goal) Institute” program
accredited as a UNESCO Chair Program, in which inter-university and industryacademia-government collaboration are indispensable for the modern engineer
education. NUT is the ninth to be qualified in Japan, and is the first adopted
engineering university in Japan. Our unique engineering education based on SDGs
will be briefly introduced.