[2018] ONLINE MENTORING PLATFORM: HELPING YOUNG PROFESSIONALS THRIVE IN JAPANESE ORGANIZATIONS

CURRENT SITUATION
Every Spring season in Japan, 550,000 students graduate from universities and 400,000 of them go into full-time jobs.[1]  30% of them, that’s about 120,000, leaves their job in the first three years.[2]  That itself is an alarmingly high figure but what happens to the remaining 70% who decides to stay with organizations?
 
OUR CHALLENGE
With seniority system and life-time employment still in place in many organizations, the 70% who decides to stay with the organization is on a pre-determined corporate career track as long as they remain in the organization.  These young professionals aspire to find role models within their organizations and try to find motivation to continue to grow and upskill themselves.  However, at often times, they do not work in most suitable roles, jobs, or have supervisors that truly understand them.  Could we provide a platform to connect mentors and mentees online via matching algorithm so that experienced mentors can provide personalized and appropriate guidance to young professionals?
 
PARTNERS WE ARE LOOKING FOR
Do you have expertise on career counseling, or do you have technology related to matching algorithm?  We would also be keen to explore technologies related to natural language processing or emotional recognition to classify mentee’s anxiety.  If you do, please get in touch with us so that we can have further conversations.
 
TIMELINE
We are part of DBIC Accelerator Program and are looking for a partner who can build a simple prototype, or jointly conduct a small market test to validate our idea in Singapore or Southeast Asia in August and September 2018.  Our demo day is in October 2018.
 
APPLICATION DEADLINE
The deadline for applications is Tuesday 31 July 2018.  Please use below form to express your interest.  We will be in touch with you to take our conversations forward if your solution suits our need.
  
ABOUT US
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.
Established in 1965, Nomura Research Institute (NRI) is a business consultancy and technology solution firm headquartered in Tokyo. NRI was created as a merged entity of Nomura Research Institute, Japan's first private think tank, and Nomura Computer Systems, a pioneer in systems integration. For more information, please visit:  
​https://www.nri.com/