Program for Junior and Senior High School Students
What is "TOPPA !!" ?
TOPPA!! is a systematic global leadership program that focuses on high-quality inputs and outputs for three months based on programs from top overseas universities such as the University of Cambridge.
A total of 250 students have taken the course, achieving a 97% satisfaction rate.
In Japanese, "Toppa" means "Breakthrough".
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Reasons to be chosen
Input
Acquire the mindset and skills required for the 21st century through lectures by leaders who are active on the front lines of the world.
Output
Become a leader with practical leadership experience by tackling actual social and business issues as a team.
Community
Participants from all over the world of the same generation with high awareness of problems.
Thorough support
Careful guidance and support from top corporate mentors.
What TOPPA Provides
Interactive lecture about practical mindset/ skills from the global business experts
Workshop
Project Based Learning (PBL) by 4-6 students from different countries/regions
Project
Become Future Leaders by Acquring
Qualifications
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Problem Setting & Solving
Global &
Social Perspective
Collaboration
MIRAIing's 21st Century Leaders
Those unconstrained by stereotypes, create a vision of an ideal future, implement it, and make it a reality to build a better world.
Various Mentors/Lecturers
Kei Ikegami
Kei worked for international corporation projects in the Middle East at Japan International Cooperation Agency and for the overseas expansion of AI robots at SoftBank. He also started to provide leader education and career education to more than 200 students whose learning opportunities were restricted due to the stay-at-home restrictions of the corona virus. In 2021, Kei established MIRAIing Inc. with the passion to nurture the next generation that will create the future. Kei holds Master of Business Administration (MBA) from University of Cambridge & Master of Public Policy from Kyoto University.
Chris Coleridge
Senior Faculty at Cambridge Judge Business School and Founder of Carbon13, a Cambridge-based talent-first accelerator investing in talent who develop startups to attack carbon emissions. Chris was an entrepreneur as a young man in the 1990s, became an academic in entrepreneurship and strategy after exiting his business, and recently returned to the “practical” side of entrepreneurship alongside his continuing work in the University of Cambridge.
Prim Chuenchomlada
Prim is currently a manager in Thailand’s leading public policy consultant firm. She works closely with government agency clients with a shared goal to deliver real, tangible impact and make processes digitally seamless for the good of the public. In her academic pursuit, Prim graduated Bachelor of Business Administration from Chulalongkorn University with second-class honour and, after a stint of working in several industries, she joined the Master of Business Administration program at Cambridge Judge Business School. Previously, Prim has worked at Accenture, her family business in gemstone trading, and creative industries.
Alex Tanahashi
Alex is supporting Nippon Investment Company's private equity investments by joining its portfolio company, Yukari Resort, a major resort hotel operator in Japan, as the CSO/CMO to execute its value creation plan.
Previously, Alex worked at McKinsey as a consultant and Waseda Academy as the lead of domestic and overseas business development. He has an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Lionel Paolella
Lionel Paolella is a University Lecturer at Cambridge Judge Business School, and an Affiliated Faculty at Harvard Law School. Lionel’s main line of research explores how market categories – a set of firms that share cognitive and cultural similarities – affect the social evaluation and performance of organisations, e.g. in the international legal services market or the Islamic banking industry. He received the MBA Faculty of the Year Award in 2018, and he has been listed among the Best 40 under 40 Professors by Poets and Quants in 2019.
Sayuri Kajiyama
Sayuri is Head of Product Management and Marketing at GeoSpock, one of Cambridge's hottest tech startups looking to transform how IoT and mobility data is analysed.
Previously, Sayuri has worked at Citigroup, Recruit, and Expedia in various roles, spanning many cities over the world including Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and Cambridge.
She has an MBA from Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and a BS in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College in California.
Jaideep Prabhu
Professor of Marketing at Cambridge Judge Business School. Jaideep is Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise and Director of the Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB). His research focuses on international business, marketing, strategy and innovation. Associate Editor of the Journal of Marketing, Customer Needs and Solutions, and BMJ Innovations. He has consulted with or taught executives from a wide range of the global first class companies/organizations.
Tian Tan
Tian is a Senior Experience Designer at McKinsey. 7+ year experience in consulting and technology, Tian has a sharp focus on unlocking business and user value and creating ambitious and sustainable change through design thinking, digital product/ service design, and Leap (new business incubation and building). His work spans across technology, healthcare, mobility, and consumer industries. MBA from University of Cambridge.
Varun Boughram
A banker, turned healthcare entrepreneur, he is passioned to work with Startups and entrepreneurs to innovate. As an experienced professional with strategic, analytical and financial acumen, he has an MBA from University of Cambridge, Judge Business School. Currently, based in the UAE and heading strategy and business incubation at Fortes Education Group.
Hiroki Maehara
After working at Bank of Japan for 7 years, recently joined a technology startup 10X,Inc. MBA from University of Pennsylvania Wharton school '21, BA of International Relation from University of Tokyo '14. Loves traveling and basketball.
Voices of Participants & Parents
I think that the project has given me a very valuable experience in terms of creating a business from scratch and building teamwork.
I am grateful that I got to receive a lot of great advice from the guest teachers, who all taught us in innovative and creative ways with all of their heart. They used games and role-plays to make the scene more realistic and learning more interesting.
Overall, I am extremely glad that I participated in this project, Thank you so much, Mr Ikegami, Ms Owada and guest teachers!
- Midori Otabe, Malaysia, 9th Grade
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VOICE
TOPPA is a place that has given me great inspiration. I was hoping to go to an overseas university, and thought that I should get myself ready before starting university life, so I participated in this "TOPPA !!".
By learning business strategies that are not taught at school, and learning from instructors who have various experiences and abilities required not only in universities but also in society, I was able to solve problems from a new perspective.
In addition to being taught in lectures, I feel that I was able to acquire the ability to actually use my knowledge and skill through group work during each lectures. I am convinced that my experience of learning with people who think alike will strongly improve my skills in the future.
——Sora Kamigaki, Hiroshima, 3rd year of High school
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VOICE
Parent's comment
Parent's comment
I think that taking lectures and discussing with junior and senior high school students from all over Japan has broadened my son's horizons.
Also, as he proceeded with the project as a team, he was initially a bit confused about how to use new tools and how to communicate with his team members, but soon he found out what he could do to contribute to the team, and began to actively engage in the program.
My son usually doesn't talk a lot, but he started to ask us for advice, probably because he wanted to come up with a better idea in order to contribute to the team, so it was a fun experience for us parents and our children to discuss.
———— Yuka Imanishi, Tokyo