“manaba” a cloud-based collaborative learning system developed and managed by ASAHI Net, Inc. was implemented by VIA (Stanford, CA), a non-profit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates international educational exchange programs focused on service and leadership development.

VIA’s Exploring Social Innovation (“ESI”) program was launched in 2010 with a mission to inspire students from universities in Japan, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley to become social leaders who can foresee and identify problems, creatively design the solutions, and execute the plan. The Japanese students will spend the first two months in Japan meeting with local leaders and listen to their lectures. During their stay at Stanford and in the San Francisco Bay Area in March, they will acquire the skills to solve the identified problems by studying social innovation and entrepreneurship, meeting social entrepreneurs, visiting innovative businesses and non-profit organizations, and working in groups to design new solutions for challenges faced by local organizations in Japan. Stanford and Berkeley students will be the peer mentors to these students during the program and become personal coaches.

“manaba” has been implemented in ESI as a platform to better organize the collaboration among the project team members, the communication among directors, students, and staff on the program gathered from many different countries and walks of life, and the partnership with Japanese partner organizations. In manaba, reading and reference materials are distributed to participants, surveys are conducted by the central office, students will store their meeting notes and reflection papers in their portfolios, and form groups to work on their final projects. Peer mentors will keep a record of their observation and advice for each student participant and share the notes with other staff.

We are thrilled to be forming this partnership with VIA who is dedicated to developing the next generation of social entrepreneurs.

To learn more about VIA’s programs, please visit us here