In Iwate Prefecture, initiatives to help young people start their own businesses and improve their business skills are on the rise. There have been a succession of opportunities for high school and technical college students to present their business plans, and some students have even participated in overseas trade fairs.

In December 2024, the final report meeting for HR Iwate was held in Morioka City, with seven groups of high school and technical college students giving presentations on themes such as measures to deal with vacant houses and support for stray cats. The people behind this initiative were the managers of manorda Iwate, a regional trading company affiliated with the Iwate Bank, and TOLIC, an organization promoting collaboration between medicine and engineering. They provided advice to the students as mentors, helping them to develop practical business skills.

In an overseas dispatch program run by TOLIC, Yoshino Sakuma from Morioka First High School and Ryo Abe from Ichinoseki National College of Technology gained experience in business negotiations at a medical equipment trade fair in Germany.

At a business contest hosted by Kitakanto Bank, a team from Morioka Chuo High School won the top prize for their maternity and child health app. The team was praised for the quality of their presentation and the clarity of their income and expenditure plan, and they answered the judges' questions with confidence.

At Ichinoseki National College of Technology, students are honing their business skills in an entrepreneurship training course as they work on solving issues for partner companies. The school is known as the technical college with the highest number of new businesses in the whole country.

Director of TOLIC Keiji Katano said, “I was impressed by the students' attitude, and it is clear that young people have the potential to create a future for Iwate.”

In the Tohoku region, where the birthrate is declining rapidly, initiatives like this will be a big step towards revitalizing the region.

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