C is for CUBE. The School has its own hand sign.
On my trip to Japan earlier this month, I was invited by my good friend Prof. Harumasa Sato to speak to his undergraduate students at the Konan University in Kobe. Prof. Sato did not ask me to talk about spectrum, Net Neutrality, interconnection, or some other issue in communications. Rather, he asked me to speak to his students about my life and international career experience. Since this is the inaugural year for the school, so I was delighted to address the students.
Prof. Sato is the Dean of the new business school and spent the past three years setting it up. And, what can I say for his efforts? It’s totally fucking cool. The school is referred to as “CUBE”, aptly named for the building cube-like shape. Prof. Sato roams the halls speaking to his students. (When I was in business school, and the students saw the Dean coming, they went the other way). Inside, the building is a fantastic mix of high-tech classrooms, work spaces, meeting spaces, and offices. The main lounge is an English-only “O-Zone” so that the students can practice their business English. The TV in the lounge is not a TV, it’s a Mac streaming YouTube. Everything is wireless, including room lighting controls, projection monitors, and the contactless RFID security passes, which are in cell phones. Students use their cell phones not only as security cards to gain entrance to certain areas of the building, but to buy drinks from the vending machines.
Insight: Kids today, I tell you. They don’t know how cool they’ve got it. My time at CUBE got me thinking about my own undergraduate experience. As a college student, I spent Spring and Summer semesters junior year studying in Japan. I cannot imagine how different my education would have been had we had these technologies and the wide-spread adoption of the Internet.
Tags: CUBE, Japan, Konan University, RCS, Really Cool Stuff!