KMD 15th Anniversary Open Plenary Meeting Held

On Friday, November 10, the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD) hosted the KMD Plenary Meeting at Shibuya QWS. The KMD Plenary Meeting is a platform for sharing about the efforts and achievements of KMD’s various projects and aims to give rise to future collaboration through creative and intellectual discussions. The meeting was co-hosted with Shibuya QWS in celebration of KMD’s 15th anniversary and was open to the general public.

Masa Inakage, dean of the Graduate School of Media Design, kicked off the meeting with an introduction of KMD that touched on the past 15 years of its history since its inception. Following that, Mr. Inwan Yoon, founder of YLAB, a webtoon studio in South Korea that creates and distributes manga content, delivered his keynote speech titled “The Future of Content-based Businesses: Creative Action.” Mr. Yoon graduated from KMD in 2010 with a Master’s of Media Design and established YLAB based on his research results. In 2021, he also received a Ph.D. of Media Design from KMD for his knowledge gained from his business activities. In July 2023, his company was officially listed on the Korean stock exchange, KODAQ. Next, student representatives delivered a TED-style talk introducing “12 Seeds,” a series of twelve Real Projects being carried out at KMD currently. After that, during the “Dream Future” panel session, Dean Inakage served as moderator while current faculty members, Kouta Minamizawa, Chihiro Sato, and Junichi Yamaoka, took to the stage where they engaged in a lively discussion about KMD’s future prospects. An information session on KMD admissions was held after the plenary meeting.

This event was conducted in a hybrid format with the main venue at Shibuya QWS, a satellite venue at Hiyoshi, as well as a Zoom webinar. Approximately 160 people were in attendance at Shibuya QWS, combined with about 90 people at the satellite venue and online, for a total of about 250 participants. A wide range of participants attended the event from both within KMD and outside of the graduate school, making it a plenary meeting befitting the occasion of KMD’s 15th anniversary.

You can watch an archived footage of the event via the YouTube link below.
https://youtu.be/1DFkDasbRZA?si=eJp1FwZth7YKvbK_

Keynote speech by KMD alumnus Inwan Yoon

Introductory talk of “12 Seeds” by student representatives

Panel session − “Dream Future”