This morning, we held the second meeting of the Learning of Tomorrow Association’s AI × Education Working Group.
Following the announcement at the previous meeting that China’s State Council had designated AI education as a national strategy, we heard from Ren Yi, CEO of DeNA China, on “The Use of AI in China’s Education Business,” and then held an ideathon.
I’ll cover the details in a separate report, but here are notes from Mr. Ren’s presentation and the ideathon.

■ AI Adoption in China’s Education Industry
・China’s K-12 education market has tripled in size over the past six years, reaching 12 trillion yen in 2017.
・The online education market has maintained a growth rate of over 20%, reaching 6 trillion yen in 2018.
・IT Initiatives
　- Digitalization (expanding 1-to-N classes)
　- Data-driven approaches (optimizing teaching methods through data collection and analysis)
・AI Initiatives
　- AI teachers (adaptive learning)
　- AI assistants (automatic data collection via image and voice recognition)
・A concrete success story for AI teachers is Yixue. It has been implemented in over 1,300 cram schools. Results from pilot programs in 100 cities showed that test scores increased by 1.7 points after lessons taught by human teachers and by 5.4 points after lessons taught by AI teachers.
・Common examples of AI assistants include foreign language learning and homework support. The most popular homework support app has 77.63 million monthly active users.
・The digitization of test grading and the integration of IT into classrooms are already beginning to take hold in major cities.
・Some schools have introduced facial recognition (including motion and facial expression analysis): Facial recognition is used for attendance tracking. It also detects in-class behavior (reading, writing, looking down, etc.) and facial expressions (sad, happy, etc.).

■ Ideathon.
It was a star-studded ideathon, with Mayor Yokoo of Taku City, COMPASS President Kamino, Tokyo University of Arts and Sciences Vice President Matsuda, Weblio CEO Tsujimura, Principal Yasushi Mouri, Private Tutoring Association Representative Yamada, and NICT Division Director Iwatsume serving as facilitators for each group.
We asked Endo, an executive at ExaWizards, to serve as the overall facilitator and planned the event together with Komiyama, Director of the Recruit Next-Generation Education Research Institute.
The ideas proposed by each group were truly unique.
Digitizing the entire school, recording the entire learning process on video, and installing fixed cameras in the faculty lounge.
Transitioning from paper-based to digital classrooms, personalized schedules, and a best-practices search tool.
An AI call center and an AI robot to handle difficult parents.
Building a platform for collaboration between schools, families, and the community.
Eliminating entrance exams entirely; recognizing perceptions and behaviors through sensors; competency analysis and recommendations.
And so on.
I’ll report on this in more detail at a later date.