Ad Venture Forum Participant Testimonials

Mr. Kento Kawamura (left), Waseda University, and Mr. Shinsuke Arafuka (right), Eco-Pork Co.

The Ad Venture Forum is a forum where passionate students and companies engage in discussion. There is a student and a company who first met through this event and started an internship just two months after the event. We asked them how they came to participate in the Ad Venture Forum and how they hit it off. (Reprinted from "Human Resources Support Vol. 24")

interviewee

Mr. Shinsuke Arafuka, Co-founder and Director, Eco-Pork Co.
Mr. Kento Kawamura, 1st year student, School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Waseda University

Eco-Pork Co.

A venture company engaged in DX in the swine industry with the mission of "co-creating a recycling-oriented swine meat economic zone using data. The company aims to realize a sustainable meat culture by solving issues related to pork production, such as the protein crisis caused by population growth, the environmental burden caused by the meat production process, and the decrease in the number of livestock farmers due to a lack of successors.

Corporate Web site:Eco-Pork Co.

Participation Period

April 2024 Tokyo

Participant's Voice

Q. How did you get involved in the Ad Venture Forum?

depths of the ocean :

We have not hired new graduates since our founding in 2017. Until now, we have accelerated our business expansion by hiring people with large company experience through mid-career recruitment. However, with the expansion of the organization, there were nuances in the language used by the board of directors in discussions about vision and mission, and a lack of clarity about what "Eco-Pork's" identity was. This led to the need to clarify the company's vision and mission more clearly than ever before, and to pass them on as part of Eco-Pork's culture. The hypothesis that emerged from this process was the need for young people with no business experience, but with the enthusiasm to take responsibility for the future of the company, to foster and carry on the culture. However, we had not been able to make contacts with young people who were enthusiastic about their activities and interested in ventures. It was at this time that I decided to participate in the Ad Venture Forum after being invited by Mr. Maru, the representative of Liberace.

village along a river :

I used to be a representative of Sustainable Game, a general incorporated association of people under 18 years old, which organizes events for junior high and high school students to accelerate the resolution of social issues. Through this connection, I became acquainted with Mr. Saito, the current general manager of the Education Development Division of LIVERNESS. My family was a pig farmer, and when I told Saito-san about my interest in pig farming, he introduced me to the Ad Venture Forum and I decided to join. At the time, I had already decided to study information science at university, so I was interested in Eco-Pork, which was involved in pig DX before I joined the forum.

QHow was your experience participating in the Ad Venture Forum?

depths of the ocean :

Many of the students were highly creative. We had a wide variety of students come to our booth, and we were able to meet students with different specialties in all fields, including liberal arts and design. The students were able to discuss the connection between their expertise and our business, and even suggest new ways to develop it. The students were able to clarify their vision and mission by discussing the "Eco-Pork-ness" of the company before they joined us. I think that because this was well understood within the company, we were able to communicate it to the students on the day of the event, and we were able to have a good discussion from the perspective of "problem solving" beyond technology. As a result, I was able to meet young people like Mr. Kawamura who shared my vision and jumped in, and I realized the value of having a connection with young human resources. Until now, recruitment has been centered on skills, but I feel that this alone makes it difficult to pass on the culture of the company. In this sense, the event was symbolic of the need to reexamine the recruitment of new graduates.

village along a river :

During the one-minute presentations by the companies at the beginning of the event, Eco-Pork's question, "Let's discuss how we can bring our expertise to solve this social issue," was very impressive. In fact, the booth had an open atmosphere that facilitated discussion. From the students' point of view, the event was not just an introduction to companies, but they were able to participate with a sense of ownership of what they could do together if they combined their expertise with the event. At the Eco-Pork booth, when I told them that my family is a pig farmer and that I was interested in pig farming, they immediately offered to do something together and we decided on our next action. In fact, the month after the event, I was offered an internship, which I started two months later. As an intern, I am in charge of data analysis. I am in charge of data analysis, statistically analyzing the data that users have entered and analyzing what can be said about it. Although I am enrolled in an information science department, my family is a pig farmer, so I am able to interpret the data from a real-world perspective and see what it means.

summary

　At the Ad Venture Forum, encounters that lead to internship and employment interviews are being made one after another out of sympathy for the vision. The reason for this is that this event is not "just a matching event. By discussing each other's passions, we are able to see commonalities that we had not seen before. Therefore, the next action is quicker. It is precisely companies that have begun to see the challenges of fostering and passing on culture as their organizations expand that need "enthusiastic young people.

Participating Partner Companies Wanted】】 【Partnerships

Students and post-doctoral fellows are invited to participate.