Tokyo Institute of Technology: Multidisciplinary International Student Workshop 2022 held in person after three-year break
Tokyo Tech’s School of Engineering, School of Materials Science and Engineering, and School of Environment and Society hold the Multidisciplinary International Student Workshop (MISW) every August. Students from these three schools and students from member universities of the Asia-Oceania Top University League on Engineering (AOTULE) participate in the workshop. Through discussions with students studying different fields, participants aim to deepen the exchange of methodologies, values, and worldviews, and to search for clues to multicultural conviviality and new innovation. Until 2019, in-person workshops also included international students who came to Japan to participate in the AOTULE Summer Program, but in 2020 the workshop was canceled due to the spread of COVID-19. In 2021, MISW was held online.
The 13th MISW, the first in-person workshop in three years, was held on August 8 and 9. A total of 52 students — forty-one students from Tokyo Tech, eight students from AOTULE (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Chulalongkorn University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Bandung Institute of Technology, University of Malaya, University of Moratuwa), and three students from the Asia-Oceania Strategic Universities (AOSU) Exchange Program (Thammasat University, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology) — participated. Students who were unable to attend in person participated online.
The first day of the workshop began with opening remarks by President Kazuya Masu, followed by introductions by international students from eight AOTULE member universities. After that, Professor Taro Hitosugi of the Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo, who is also a professor at Tokyo Tech, gave a plenary lecture on “What should human researchers focus on in the era of artificial intelligence and robots?” with a demonstration using a robotic arm. The lecture provided an opportunity to think deeply about the relationship between research, artificial intelligence, and robotics in an age when AI and robotics are being utilized more frequently. Following Hitosugi’s talk, a lively question-and-answer session ensued.
From the afternoon of the first day to the second day, all participating students presented their research in English at two venues, each with a 10-minute presentation and a 4-minute Q&A session. These talks were chaired by a student selected from among the participants. The presentations were evaluated from various perspectives by faculty members of the three schools, and one student received the Outstanding Presentation Award while five students received the Excellent Presentation Award. The award-winning students are as follows.