With the goal of helping to promote the employment and establishment of young talent as well as stimulate creative industries, we established a project known as “LINKS NAGOYA”.

LINKS NAGOYA is Nagoya’s creative industries’ staffing and project support hub. We act as backup for mainly small and medium-sized businesses in the Tokai region, and when local industries and the creative sector team up, we act to help raise the level of manufacturing and further regional development. With the goal of forming networks among regional creative talent, local industry and the region’s educational institutions, we maintained a website and held a succession of symposiums, exhibitions and company briefings.
For students, we offered information from many different angles, from preparing for job searches, gathering information and the challenges of work to the skills necessary for work. For companies, we acted as a venue for information about new connections and discoveries.

On the administrative front, planning capability both within and outside of a company is becoming indispensable. For the industry of this region, for which business activities are based on manufacturing, there is a definite efficacy that arises from skillfully utilizing creativity. Mainly participating in the program were either companies that are actually proving that by adopting creative power it can be applied as a vital asset in business activities, or, in the case of companies for which creative work is their core business, those companies that are debating what kind of position creativity should hold in business.
There is an extreme dearth of producer-type talent that could use the same point of view and language of the proprietor to debate creativity, in order to apply creative thinking to the management aspects of a business. From now on, people who can connect others in order to revitalize creative industries will be in demand.

We received acknowledgement from many sides for this project, as an initiative offering support from a point of view never before available in the Nagoya region, with examples that connected directly to finding employment as well as examples of things that advanced business.

■Major Projects
LINKS NAGOYA Website
With the object of aiding creators and businesses active in the Tokai region and expanding employment opportunities and business activity in the creative industries, we built and maintained a website to collect and summarize business and other information. We shared information on hosted events, employment and internship opportunities and information about companies in the creative sector with communities on twitter and facebook. Fri., September 9 2011―present.

LINKS NAGOYA Symposium
With the goal of forming a network that would promote employment, this symposium introduced internships and industry-academia collaborations to a wide audience. Fri., October 14 2011/Design Hall

LINKS NAGOYA Market
With an aim toward stimulating the creative industry and promoting employment, we participated in the trade fair Nagoya Messe 2011. We provided various companies with a place to display their PR materials and representative products, hold interviews and offer information to students looking for employment in the industry. Wed., November 9 2011 – Sat., November12 2011

LINKS NAGOYA Corporate Briefing Session
We held events in which a total of 11 different kinds of companies that offer internships intended for students looking for employment in the creative industry held consultation sessions about getting accepted to internships or getting jobs.

■LINKS NAGOYA
Primary Project Constituent: City of Nagoya
Planning, Execution: International Design Center NAGOYA Inc.
Cooperation: NAGOYA DESIGN WEEK, NPO Made In Japan Project