School of Fun for Children in Fukushima

Please find a Japanese version of this report here.

Through August 21 to 24, we had our second summer camp for this year at Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), Keio University, Fujisawa City. 24 children from Fukushima, including elementary and junior high school students, and one high-school-student sub-leader, participated in this camp featuring deep learning.

Again, inspired by the statement "No one has ever changed the world by doing what the world has told them to do." by Eddy Zhong, a teen entrepreneur, we tried to put across the message "DO NOT OBEY" through the camp, because artificial intelligences and robots would do much better job doing what they are told to do when the participants of this camp grow up.

Following the practice in our previous camp, we again started with improvising; our friends 6-dim+, a group of actors specialized in improvisation, led the orientation of the camp and also gave the children a chance to participate in their live performance. On the following day, we did an excursion in Enoshima-Kamakura area, in which they had to take photos with the same compositions at the same places as ones they were shown before they started the orienteering, without being told where the photos were taken. One of the photos was a scene from the movie "Shin Godzilla", and some teams figured out where the scene was shot even before they left for the excursion, just by searching on the web (as expected). On the third day, students from Future University Hakodate visited us to let children experience game design. A researcher from Preferred Networks, Inc. came to let children create a neural network that can distinguish between dogs and cats, and also let them think about "The Trolley Problem" that led them to some deep thinking of their senses of ethics and artificial intelligences. That night, we did a treasure hunt at the campus. On the final day, the children and the university-student staff all considered what they want to become when they are age 28.

The age 28 is how old Hikakin, a Japanese YouTuber, is now. He wouldn't have dreamed that he would become what he is now when he was a child like particpants of this camp. Likewise, unknown future must lie in front of the children. After the two camps. we have received an overwhelming number of messages from parents thanking for the camps, and we sense that many parents are now worried and anxious about the unknown future of their children. 

- GIVING WEEK BONUS DAY -

Now is GlobalGiving's GIVING WEEK, and Thursday, October 5 is the *** Bonus Day ***.

On this day (9:00:01-23:59:59 EDT or 22:00:01 Thursday - 12:59:59 Friday JST), organizations registered at GlobalGiving will compete for a share of the $50,000 Incentive Fund. Our share will be determined by what percentage of the total funds Academy Camp raises on the Bonus Day. So every donation from you counts.

For the past 6 years, we did both summer and winter/spring camps. But this year, we have not yet secured the budget for a winter/spring camp. So please help. Your contributions will make difference.

Links:

• Academy Camp Facebook page in English