Ota City residents explore space at Tokyo Tech lecture series

Residents of Ota City again packed a lecture hall on Ookayama Campus as Tokyo Tech faculty members shared their expertise with the local community through their annual public lecture series.

This year's lectures, held on six occasions from late May to early July, zoomed in on topics involving outer space.

Ota City, an area southwest of Ookayama Campus, has been providing its residents with lifelong learning opportunities through the "Ota City Residents' University" initiative since 1971. Tokyo Tech has been involved for the past 21 years. A local volunteer group – Friends of the Natural Sciences – plans the topic for each lecture, matches Tokyo Tech professors to these topics, and creates flyers which are distributed to the local community. The collaboration, coordinated by Professor Shin-ya Koshihara at the Tokyo Tech end, continues to prosper.

As in previous years, participants had to be selected via lottery by the local government as capacity was limited. Most students were working adults or retirees eager to learn from Tokyo Tech's experts, but participants also included youngsters who arrived in school uniform, demonstrating the broad interest in the Institute's lectures.

Tokyo Tech and its faculty members continue to cooperate actively with Ota City in order to provide residents with meaningful learning experiences.

• Twenty years of lifelong learning with Ota City | Tokyo Tech News