CONNECT TOKYO ；白金台/Tokyo/Japan
白金台駅から徒歩30秒！インターナショナルなスペース
オーナーの１人Aki Sakamotoさんに、インタビューご協力頂きました。
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1/ Could you introduce yourself ?
There are a number of people involved but we would like to introduce T. Nanbu and Aki Sakamoto.
T. Nanbu is in charge of operations for CONNECT TOKYO. T. Nanbu’s background is in architecture and design. He has lived in France for 9 years and speak Japanese, French and English.
Aki Sakamoto is in charge of marketing (with special focus on building international links). Aki’s background is in finance with brief stint in the marketing area many years ago. Aki was born in Belgium (unfortunately cannot speak any French), brought up in London, UK and has lived and/or worked in London, Tokyo, New York, Beijing and Hong Kong. He currently travels between Hong Kong and Tokyo. Aki speaks English, Japanese, functional Mandarin and some Spanish.
2/ please tell us about your coworking space
CONNECT TOKYO is a newly opened coworking and event space, based in Shirokanedai, Tokyo. Design of the space has been well thought out to match our vision to create an open and collaborative environment for work and relaxation without sacrificing on quality. Substantial work has been done to make the office into a warmer, stylish workspace.
We are striving to build a close knit community that brings together people from all walks of life, not limited by race, generation, occupation or other humanly created categorization.
3/ do you have some special plans (events) during the worldwide jelly week?
We will be opening up our space during the Worldwide Jelly Week so the wider community can experience what CONNECT TOKYO is about. Specifically, we will be open all day on Friday 20th January and from 6pm local time on Saturday 21st January. Saturday will be our main event with plans to connect with a number of other coworking spaces as well as having a party with wine and snacks!
4/ what is your unique points to improve community relations? How do you improve community relations?
We aim to become a place for Japanese and International crowds to become one true community. There will be regular events including language and cultural classes, and other classy events. All events are designed to open our mind and help with communication among the members of CONNECT TOKYO.
In addition, we’d like to take advantage of Shirokanedai’s location and our various experiences to create a cultural centre.
Good design is essential. CONNECT TOKYO was specifically designed to encourage communication without compromising on quality.
5/ please tell us your references you got the above skills to manage community
The CONNECT TOKYO management team has wide and varied experience living, working and travelling outside of Japan. The combined years living outside of Japan add up to well over 50 years! The countries that we have lived in include France, Australia, UK, USA, and China. We aim to apply our wide and varied experiences to CONNECT TOKYO so we build a space that is international and at the same time uniquely Japanese.
Our creative effort is supported by having 2 architect/interior designers on our team with one recently winning a prestigious award in Australia. Our manager in charge of operations is also another architect who is qualified in France has experience working in both France and in Japan.
6/ generally do you organize weekly and monthly events at your space? (Friday jelly, Sunday reading club)
We are new to coworking so are open to suggestions from our members and the wider coworking community! We are planning a number of interesting events that will be open to our members. There will be language lessons and cultural events combined with food and drinks. We also plan to have investment and finance seminars.
7/ let us know the most exciting project for you launched from coworking space
We are currently working on a number of exciting collaboration. For the moment, we expect to launch a regular French class taught in English. In addition, there will be a series of talks that will cover a wise range of topics that will widen our sphere of interest. The areas will range from investment to architecture.
8/ what is the most interesting as a space owner/communications manager?
It’s all about the community, meeting interesting people, talking and exchanging ideas, and collaborating to create something new. We’ve just started operating but already we are meeting people we’d like to collaborate with.
9/ your vision and hope for coworking in the future
We hope coworking will help change the way people interact in life and we plan to contribute to this change in small way.
10/ let me add a few words to conclude. Thank you all.
The Worldwide Jellyweek is a great way for the worldwide community to come together. I would like to thank the community and various organisers involved, with a very big thank you to Anni!
We would also like to make sure we do our bit to keep the momentum going beyond this week by hosting regular jelly events at CONNECT TOKYO.