Final Presentations of Global Practical Course II, Winter 2025
Students in the Global Practical Course II recently delivered their final presentations, showcasing the sophisticated project management and problem-solving skills they honed throughout the semester. This cohort dedicated their efforts to designing innovative, sustainable solutions for a pressing local and global issue: the Urban Brown Bear Problem in Hokkaido.
By applying frameworks like stakeholder management, risk assessment, and resource allocation, teams developed comprehensive strategies to balance human safety with ecological preservation. Below is an overview of the solutions developed by the students:
Team 1: To Make Hunting More Profitable
Mission: Sustainably monitor bear populations while increasing the economic welfare and salary of hunters. This team focused on the “Economic Transformation” of bear management. Their solution involves transforming bear-related products into maximum value items and establishing a binding partnership with the Ainu community for revenue-sharing and premium fair-trade crafts. By using science-based quotas, they aim to enable a sustainable income for hunters while maintaining ecological stability.
Team 2: AI Brown Bear Sensor System & Coexistence Strategy
Mission: Reduce bear sightings in urban Sapporo and maintain public safety while securing bear lives. Team 2 proposed a high-tech “AI-Driven Safety System”. Their scope includes a multi-layered approach: creating a reforestation map to restore natural habitats, deploying a sensor node network, and developing AI software to predict bear trajectories and send real-time alerts to residents. They also designed a “Controlled Feeding Station Protocol” using dummies to keep bears away from urban centers.
Student presentations from the course can be viewed below.
Special Thanks to Our Guest Lecturer
We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Nitobe College alumnus, Hiroaki Koide, a researcher from the R&D group at Hitachi, Ltd. Koide shared his inspiring journey of bridging academic research with industrial application. He spoke candidly about his current challenge of pursuing a Ph.D. at Hokkaido University while continuing his professional career at Hitachi. His valuable advice regarding career development, balancing higher education with corporate R&D, provided our students with a powerful real-world perspective on lifelong learning and professional resilience.
