On August 3rd, our 2020 UMAP-COIL Joint Program participants joined the 2nd Lecture on zoom, where they learned about “Design for Social Regeneration After Mass Disaster”, featuring case studies of local Kamaishi (Iwate, Japan) government, local residents and international organizations responding to the disaster.

Kamaishi was one of the many cities severely damaged by the Tohoku Earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. During the session, we welcomed 2 guest speakers from organizations which have been working in Kamaishi for its recovery after the disaster: Kate Sedwell, Co-Founder & Director of Atlantic Pacific (https://www.atlanticpacific.org.uk/) and Idrees Rasouli, Founder and CEO of X-Crop (https://x-crop.com/). They gave presentations on lessons learned from their experiences and shared knowledge about what is really needed in preparing and recovering from disasters. The students also had a chance to discuss potential social impact within their individual community in small groups during the breakout session and share their ideas with others at the end of the lecture.

 

 

 

 

 

They will have another lecture on August 10th before starting their 2-week-group project where they would be asked to identify an issue related to SDGs and suggest solutions to resolve the issue.