About Our International Cooperation Projects

We engage in contract work to organize training courses hosted by the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) chiefly for Asian and Pacific countries.

COVID-19 is rampant in Vietnam just like the rest of the world. The KDDI Foundation has been working in international joint research with APT to develop chatbot-based applications that allow COVID-19 patients to check for symptoms and that let the government conduct online surveys in coordination with the Vietnamese NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS) and the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC).

A research study on sending out disaster information was adopted by APT as a fiscal 2021 international joint research project for the practical implementation of an Emergency Warning Broadcast System (EWBS) in rural areas of Mongolia. We are currently conducting research in coordination with the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications (MDDC) of Mongolia, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and the Japan Telecommunications Engineering and Consulting Service (JTEC).

In cooperation with the NGO World Assistance for Cambodia (WAfC)*, we began providing educational support in Cambodia by constructing schools in rural areas for children who could not attend school because they lived too far from existing schools, as well as children who had to study in bare-bones classrooms made from roofs and pillars. These schools take the name "KDDI School" preceded by the name of the village that they are located in. In addition to providing compulsory education, each KDDI School delivers extra lessons on PCs and English with dispatched teachers. Our schools plan and provide music, art, and PE lessons on an irregular basis to help students cultivate aesthetic sensibilities.
* Our current partner is the NGO Assistance for Education in Rural Cambodia Organization (AERCO).

The Small Art School is a tuition-free art school for children that receives support from the KDDI Foundation. It was established in 2008 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the home of Angkor Wat. The Small Art School cooperates with us in artistic activities, such as delivering lectures at KDDI Schools, conducting a project to create a picture book after watching the traditional Cambodian performing art Sbek Thom, and holding workshops to create automatons. The Foundation's publications feature many artworks created by students of the Small Art School.

Sbek Thom is a large-sized shadow puppet show that has been performed in Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. This traditional art is one of the UNESCO-designated intangible cultural heritages that represent Cambodia. In 2011, the KDDI Foundation started to support Ty Chean's Troupe, which aims to revitalize and preserve Sbek Thom as an art form that was once endangered in a civil war. The troupe holds workshops and outdoor performances for students at local KDDI Schools. In 2014, the KDDI Foundation donated a theater and rehearsal space to allow for practice and performance during the rainy season.

Our support for the New Zero Art Village School in PaneNaeGone Village, a suburb of Yangon, started by organizing art classes with contemporary artist Aye Ko. Our wish is for everyone young and old to become adept at self-expression, and so we allow both children and adult villagers to attend the classes. The school currently runs classes for English, PCs, music, and dance.

In Lalitpur, Nepal, we provide a Robot Programming Education program to help improve attendees' abilities to think logically and solve problems while having fun.

Most Nepalese public elementary and junior-high schools are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are engaging in initiatives for home learning support that utilizes tablets and workbooks in addition to textbooks so that children can continue to learn without Internet access at home.

Estimates show that approximately 16% of the population in Nepal has some kind of visual or aural impairment. We are working to create digital content for visually and aurally impaired students by adding a text-to-speech function and sign-language translations to digital teaching materials.