SoftBank Corp. (hereinafter referred to SoftBank) and the University of Tokyo will collaboratively implement an educational program aiming to train next-generation AI talents who can work globally, targeted for students of the University of Tokyo between 1st February and 1st March, 2023.
The program is part of the efforts by the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo to give opportunities for students to learn about AI and data applications. The program’s aim is also to provide them experience in the front lines of business in a practical way through data hackathons experiences, study groups activities, social events, and global internships etc.
The overall planning and operation of the program will be run by SoftBank, leveraging its own resources and know-hows through Axross Recipe Biz, which usually provides services to businesses, as well as through collaboration with Findability Sciences Inc., an investee of SoftBank.

Registration for participation is scheduled to open on 2nd December on the UTokyo website. For details, please refer to the Press Release from the SoftBank as linked below.
Note that the educational program will be in Japanese.

＜Related Links＞ ※ available in Japanese only
・Press Release by SoftBank
https://beyondai.jp/contents/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Press-Release_SB_UTokyo-educational-program-for-New-generation-AI-talents_J.pdf
・Article at SoftBank HP
https://www.softbank.jp/corp/news/press/sbkk/2022/20221121_01/
・Web page for registration at UTokyo
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/students/special-activities/ugip.html
・Axross-Recipe
https://axross-recipe.com/
・Findability Sciences Inc.
https://findabilitysciences.co.jp/

It was announced on November 10, 2022, that Professor Eiji SAITOH of the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, was selected as the awardee of the Nishina Memorial Prize for 2022 for his achievements on “Pioneering contribution to the physics of spin current”. The award ceremony will be held on December 6.

The Nishina Memorial Prize has been awarded to physicists for their outstanding achievements in the field of basic and applied physics every year since its establishment in 1955.

Prof. Saitoh gave the following comment on his selection, “This award recognizes the development of basic physics of spin current. In my group, we are currently developing spin current physics further and entering new research areas of quantum device physics and quantum AI. With this award as an encouragement, we will continue to contribute to the further development of science and technology.”

Prof. Saitoh is the project leader of the Basic research project (Integrating Physics and AI) entitled “Analysis of materials’ quantum properties using AI (Quantum ID: Exploiting “Quantum Fingerprintings” of materials with AI)” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

・Nishina Memorial Foundation HP
https://www.nishina-mf.or.jp/en
・Press release announcing the winners (PDF）(Japanese only)
https://www.nishina-mf.or.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022NMPj.pdf
・Prof. Saitoh's Project page
https://beyondai.jp/contents/projects/saitoh/?lang=en
・Saitoh lab. Profile page
https://saitoh.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/member/saitoh.html

Project Professor Yukie NAGAI of the university’s International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) was awarded the “Women in Robotics Engineering and Science (WiRES)” at IROS 2022 (The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), one of the largest and most influential research conferences in robotics in the world, for her contributions in cognitive developmental robotics and robot learning research. She was invited to give a talk in a special session dedicated to WiRES awardees with four other renowned women researchers on October 25 at IROS.

Professor Nagai has also been named one of the 50 most prominent women in robotics in the world by the journal, Analytics Insight, in June 2020.

Professor Nagai is the project leader of the Basic research project (AI and Society) entitled "AI x Tojisha-Kenkyu: Computational Neuroscience for Systematic Understanding of Cognitive Individuality” at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・IROS Kyoto 2022 HP
https://iros2022.org/
https://iros2022.org/program/iros-35th-anniversary-forum/
・Analytics Insight
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/analytics-insight-names-worlds-50-most-renowned-women-in-robotics/
・Dr. Nagai’s profile page
https://developmental-robotics.jp/en/members/yukie_nagai/

Dr. Nagai becomes one of 35 women to be honored with a 2022 Women in Robotics Engineering and Science Award.

The 6th and 7th Beyond AI Science Café movies uploaded at YouTube was covered as an CLOSE UP article at “topics” page in the "Daigaku Koho- Campus Magazine” (August, 2022, No. 1561), UTokyo.

Japanese Only :
The University of Tokyo "University Press" August 2022, NO.1561 (2022.8.31)
The "Daigaku Koho- Campus Magazine” (August 2022, No. 1561 on August 31, 2022), UTokyo
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/about/public-relations/kouhou.html

Associate Professor Yoshiho IKEUCHI of the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) of the University of Tokyo gave a lecture from the UTokyo New York Office, along with Teruo FUJII, President of the University of Tokyo who joined the event online, and other invited speakers at UTokyo-IIS Seminar “Delivering the Vision – Closing the gap between academic research and society” held in a hybrid format on June 13, 2022, New York time.　

Associate Professor Ikeuchi is the research leader of the basic research project “Understanding human brain through constructing organoid circuit tissues” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

For detail about the seminar, refer to the following URL:
https://www.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/news/3871/

UTokyo-IIS Bulletin Vol.10 covering the event published on September 1, 2022 :
https://issuu.com/utokyo-iis/docs/utokyo-iis_bulletin_vol10_web_220831/6

A research team including Professor Kenichi OHKI of the Institute for AI and Beyond, the Graduate School of Medicine and the International Research Center for Neurointelligence (IRCN) of the University of Tokyo and Assistant Professor Tomonari MURAKAMI also of the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Tokyo has successfully elucidated a new mechanism of the brain by which a complex neural network, including interareal connections in the cerebral cortex, is efficiently formed during development. This is the first study investigating comprehensively how interareal connections among cortical and thalamic regions are formed during development.
　
This study is expected to be applied in the future to treatments for diseases such as congenital blindness and to circuit formation algorithms to improve an artificial intelligence.

The research result was published in the online edition of Nature on 3 August 2022 (UK time).

Professor Ohki and Assistant Professor Murakami are Project Leader and Researcher respectively in the Basic Research Project entitled “Development of next generation AI by modeling brain information ” at the Institute for AI and Beyond.

The full press release (in Japanese only) in PDF.
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/content/400193638.pdf

Related link: UTokyo HP
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/press/
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00240.html

Abstract URL (Title: Modular strategy for the development of hierarchical networks in the mouse visual system)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05045-w

Professor Tatsuya HARADA of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology （RCAST）of the University of Tokyo was awarded the Science and Technology Award in the Science and Technology Promotion Category for the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) jointly with Professor Shinichi SATO of National Institute of Informatics (NII) and his research collaborators on April 20, 2022 for the contributions made by the “Medical Big-Data Cloud Platform and its application to AI automated diagnosis research”.

The "Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" is awarded to persons who have made outstanding achievements in research and development, promotion of understanding related to science and technology.

Professor Tatsuya HARADA is the Project Leader of the Basic Research (Advancement of Fundamental AI) project entitled "Automatic Learning of High Accurate Prediction Models from Limited Supervised Data" at the Institute for AI and Beyond of the University of Tokyo.

・MEXT Homepage: Selected the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology (Awards for Science and Technology in Research Category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (only in Japanese).
https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/mext_00989.html
・Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo (only in Japanese):
https://www.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/news/release/20220408.html
・National Institute of Informatics (NII) News Release
https://www.nii.ac.jp/news/release/2022/0408.html

Professor Masashi SUGIYAMA, Sub-Leader of the Basic Research (Advancement of Fundamental AI) entitled "Automatic Learning of High Accurate Prediction Models from Limited Supervised Data" (Project Leader, Professor Tatsuya HARADA), was selected for the 2022 Commendation for Science and Technology (Awards for Science and Technology in Research Category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
The Award Ceremony will be held on April 20 at the auditorium of the Ministry.
The "Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" is awarded to persons who have made outstanding achievements in research and development, promotion of understanding related to science and technology.

Awarded research:
Weakly Supervised Machine Learning for Building Reliable Artificial Intelligence