The delegates from Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology (AIIT) led by Prof. Mitsuhiro Maeda and Prof. Junfu Chen, Professor of AIIT visited ERIA annex office on October 8th, 2012.

AIIT, the Secretariat of the Asia Professional Education Network (APEN), is running an education program to nurture project leaders in this region. The students, mainly from business sectors, are studying our one of flagship projects, Comprehensive Asia Development Plan (CADP) as a case study. The students draw up their business plan and sent ERIA the report to evaluate. After rescreening at AIIT based on the evaluation by ERIA, three qualified students came to ERIA and made a presentation to ERIA senior staffs and researchers.

Ms. Kaoka Takano made a presentation on "New methodology of enhancing RO technology in Indonesia" to introduce water business plan in Jakarta (water supply and sanitation). Mr. Yoichi Nihei explained on Project plan "Network Service using a mobile phone network in Hanoi". Mr.Noriaki Mori, introduced ASIA Optical Connectivity Project through the relationship and investment from Soft Bank.

A lively discussion was conducted between the students and the researchers of ERIA to make each project more concrete and realizable. After the presentation session, Prof. Hidetoshi Nishimura, Executive Director of ERIA announced "Best Presenter" and it was awarded to Ms. Kaoka Takano.

During the lunch meeting session, Prof. Maeda explained on a new type of education system based on Project based Learning (PBL) to foster high level middle managers in production units in this region. It was an APEN's initiative. PBL focuses on the enhancement of the competency such as communication ability, leadership, and followership. Such abilities are sometimes more important than the technical knowledge or skills in the business situations. The competency required in industry is the ability for the proper management of the team activities and hence, the practical group learning is indispensable for the competency training.

Prof. Nishimura reaffirmed to further support AIIT and APEN's activities.