We held a roundtable discussion for programming education practitioners.
Participants included Mr. Hirai and Mr. Kurihara from Koga City; Mr. Matsuda from Maehara Elementary School; Mr. Ebisawa from Ishigami Special Needs School; Mr. Kage from Komyo Special Needs School; Team Sumida Ward;Team Artec, Team Afrel, Team WRO, Team CoderDojo, Team LITALICO, Team MESH, Team KOOV, Team Viscuit, Team Minecraft, Team Mitou Junior, Team Researchers, Team Benesse, and Team Microsoft.We were also joined by Mr. Niitsu from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Mr. Hashimoto from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). (The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts but will participate starting next time.)
Elementary schools, special needs schools, boards of education, universities, private companies and organizations, and government ministries. Approximately 40 people.(Sorry we ran out of table seats…)
We were delighted to have everyone gathered here—people from various backgrounds who are involved in the practice of programming education and whom we rely on daily—to discuss the challenges we need to address moving forward.
There were calls for this meeting to serve as a platform for connecting schools, private companies and organizations, and academia, and I hope it will become just that.
Let’s work together as one! With that in mind… maybe we’ll need some alcohol next time? Thank you very much to
everyone. And a big thank you to the team at Microsoft for their
support!

Professor Hirai posted about what happened yesterday, so I’d like to share it here (*^^*)
“Last night, a suspicious gathering of people involved in programming education took place somewhere in Edo. To put it simply, it was a meeting of a secret society brimming with ambition—one plotting a wicked scheme to use programming as a weapon to improve Japanese education and, while they’re at it, brighten Japan’s future.To achieve this goal, the members of this secret society work hard every day and carry out steady, diligent efforts. However, there are also “heroes of justice” trying to thwart their plans. They say things like, “It’s too hard for kids,” “It’ll be too much for schoolteachers,” and “There are more important things to do,” as they try to protect schools from the evil clutches of programming. The heroes’ weapon is the magic spell, “For the sake of the children.” To counter these heroes, the secret society seems to have united as one. It kind of felt like the Sky Pirates’ Alliance. Well, it looks like fun, so I guess that’s okay."For now, my first mission might be to win over these 'champions of justice' one by one and expand our influence."