Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics

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The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics (KCGI) is Japan's first IT professional graduate school. KCGI's parent organization, Kyoto Computer Gakuin (KCGI), was Japan's first private computer education institution. KCGI was established as a private school by Shigeo Hasegawa and Yasuko Hasegawa under their unique, forward-looking philosophy. KCGI has been engaged in computer education for over 50 years since its establishment in 1963. During that time, high school graduates and many graduates of four-year universities have enrolled in and graduated from its programs. At that time, only research-oriented graduate schools existed in Japan.
Many of the students who enrolled after graduating from university chose KCGI after searching for higher education directly connected to the practical side of computers. Even though KCGI was organized under the vocational school system, it holds a role in Japanese society as an educational institution for university graduates. It has also served the function of occupational and practical graduate school.
Based on this state of affairs and history, in 1998, KCGI established a joint program with graduate programs (including Information Sciences and Technologies, Computer Science, and others) at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States and has since implemented a professional graduate school curriculum oriented towards practical learning. This collaboration between a Japanese vocational school and American graduate school programs was the first of its kind in Japan and ground-breaking.
The mission of KCGI is to meet the need for high level and diverse human resources in our IT society and to contribute to the realization of high-level information society and the development of the economy through the provision of high level IT professionals who possess extensive knowledge and high-level skills beyond what is conventional and who are also internationally minded in the age of ubiquitous computing. Our purpose is to adapt to developments in information and related technologies and provide education on theory and practical technology in academic fields related to science, technology, and business administration in high-level professionals' training.
At the time of our establishment, KCGI created a program to cultivate engineers and, in particular, CIOs specializing in web business (e-business) based on the revised edition of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) IS (Information Systems) master's program curriculum with information technology education serving as a foundation while also taking into consideration international business education. We also set forth the following as our founding philosophy: "Cultivate specialists in applied information technology who possess creativity and high-level practical abilities which will meet the needs of society, support the present age, and lead us into the next generation." KCGI advocates as our mission and purpose the contribution to the realization of a high-level information society and the recovery of the economy in Japan through the provision of high level IT professionals who possess extensive knowledge and high-level skills beyond what is conventional and who are also internationally minded in order to meet the need for high level and diverse human resources in our IT society, as well as the adaptation to developments in information and related technologies and the provision of education on theory and practical technology in academic fields related to science, technology, and business management in the training of high-level professionals.
Further, KCGI is also focused on cultivating international leaders equipped with IT and management skills who can exhibit their true potential throughout Asia, an area experiencing increasing globalization. At KCGI, we have aimed to be the number one IT professional school in Asia since our establishment. We actively accept students from around the world and, in particular, Asia.
Also, against the recent international acclaim for Japanese content such as anime, the importance of the content industry is increasing. KCGI is thus exploring the even greater possibilities posed by the internet than that which has already been achieved in the relationship between the content industry and IT. We are also focusing on developing actual content and research into new content business models and creating relevant courses.

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