On Friday, September 1, the Keio SDGs Conference: 2023 Summer Camp was held on Hiyoshi Campus. This event brought together a wide range of participants — Keio students ranging from elementary school to university — to allow them to consider and discuss potential ways for Keio to work towards objectives and targets meant to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Building on last year's efforts, Keio is holding its 2023 Student Conference where selected student representatives from across its undergraduate faculties deliberate on Keio's overall vision, objectives, and specific targets for realizing the SDGs. In the Spring Semester, participating students attended lectures by experts on topics related to the SDGs to deepen their understanding of current events and how they concern Japan and the rest of the world. For the Fall Semester, the goal is for these students to divide into groups for further discussions and submit their final proposals to Keio's president about how they think the Keio should approach these issues moving forward.
This year's iteration of the summer camp has been scaled up from a half-day to a full-day program based on the previous year's camp. The expanded schedule provided a deeper learning experience by ensuring more time for in-depth discussions among participants, Q&A sessions, and feedback for group presentations. About 100 participants gathered on the day of the event and engaged in enthusiastic discussions on the 17 goals of the SDGs. These were divided into four categories: "Society", "Environment", "Economy" and "Cooperation", where students deliberated over the targets and action plans in each respective category.
During the camp, President Kohei Itoh, Professor Norichika Kanie and Guest Professor Hiroko Kuniya listened to the student presentations and provided feedback on their work. Professor Kanie and Guest Professor Kuniya both work with the Graduate School of Media and Governance and Professor Kanie has served as the general supervisor for the Student Conference. Throughout the event, students of all ages could be seen actively engaging with each other about what kind of future they hope to see and what issues need to be resolved in order to achieve it. Many also expressed hopes that such gatherings that bring people together from across Keio would continue to be organized in the future.
The ideas brought up throughout the Summer Camp will be used within the Student Conference and incorporated into the final proposals to the president's office.