Invitation to the Graduate School of Media Design (KMD)
—Shaping the dream futures through disruptive creativity
The mission of the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD) is to develop “media innovators” who are capable of innovating on their own initiative to create social value. Media innovators will go beyond the confines of specific disciplines and national borders to perform on the global stage and play a leading role in shaping a creative society.
Prof. Masa INAKAGE
Dean, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design
The accelerating creative society
Global society is currently facing numerous complex challenges including pandemic, regional conflicts, and environmental issues. We can no longer rely on existing ways of thinking, values, and established social systems. Furthermore, society has begun to shift dramatically in its structure and function due to digital transformation. In this era of uncertainty and rapid change, a desirable but sustainable society urgently needs to be built centered on digital transformation accelerated through cutting-edge digital technologies. Achieving this requires a “futures literacy” (future-orientated creativity) that envisions a desirable image of what is to come that is unbound by conventional wisdom and customs. We will continue to nurture the next generation of global leaders who can envision and lead the future by engaging in real-world activities to create markets and society through innovation that proposes new values, rather than relying on traditional problem-solving.
At KMD, in order to achieve what we dub “futures literacy,” a method named Dream Driven Design is employed to sketch out the future. In order to bring about disruptive innovation, we utilize a wide range of techniques to iteratively develop and prototype original ideas, a process we refer to as “MAKE”. However, this is just the first step. We also conduct research and then deliver our prototypes to society in the stage we call “DEPLOY.” After deployment, we conduct more research on the actual implementation and social “IMPACT” of outcomes. The entire process is supported by disruptive creativity, which views objects and phenomena from a wide range of perspectives, develops new ideas, expressions, and processes from zero, and produces unique social value.
Seeking social impact
To train media innovators, KMD enacts the sequential process of innovating from zero (ideas), bringing these innovations to market, and creating social impact while balancing theory with practice. We call this a “Real Project,” and these constitute the core of KMD’s activities.
Beyond contributions to academia, our objective is to impact the global creative society by developing new products, services and businesses, formulating new standards, and recommending changes to systems and institutions. For members of KMD to conduct activities at the forefront of their fields as global citizens, KMD uses both English and Japanese as its official languages, and is developing a learning environment aimed at integrating the virtual and physical realms.
In the Real Project, our aims are to foster innovation and to train transnational minds to understand how to facilitate collaboration among regions, identify relevant global commonalities, and adapt ideas and products to local characteristics. Our team brings together a diverse range of specialties and cultural values so that students have the opportunity to learn and gain practical experience in 21st century-style leadership that will allow them to maximize their potential.
Global leaders who are interculturally competent
In our globalized society, we use the term interculturally competent to refer to a person who understands the unique cultural and economic values of a region, respects the differences among regions, and is able to go beyond the framework of his or her own discipline to collaborate. Persons with intercultural competence must also have the ability to comprehend regionality in addition to intelligence, manners, and competency in English as a lingua franca. Another important credential for leaders is to contribute to activities aimed at realizing a future society that is sustainable from a global perspective. For this reason, KMD has established a number of bases that it operates on its own or in partnership with institutions in Japan and overseas and collaborates on numerous projects with its international partners. Additionally, we offer courses specifically for students to acquire the proficiency in the lingua franca of English that is required to execute projects.
Three literacies for the sake of future society
To create our desirable society in the future, we must aim to achieve digital transformation as created by innovative technologies, societal transformation which can be inspired by new social structures and values, and human transformation by changing how individual people act and what they value. It is imperative to envisage a sustainable society in which nature—including animals, plants, and human beings—and robots or other types of machines can co-exist. Leading this type of social metamorphosis will require three essential skills or “literacies”: future literacy, the ability to visualize and illustrate one’s ideas about the future; innovation literacy, the ability to think outside the box and separate oneself from contemporary systems, mindsets, and common practice; and media literacy, the ability to blend the online world with the physical reality and work in these hybrid spaces. At KMD, students are given practical experiences so that they can build their skills in these three literacies and accompanying mindset.