NEWS

The public screening for the ANDO Momofuku Honor Prize and Award took place in June 2023. These awards were established through a generous endowment by the late Dr. Momofuku Ando, founder of Nissin Foods Holding Co., Ltd. and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Ritsumeikan University. These awards are administered with the cooperation of Nissin each semester. The Award is given to fifth-semester students and the Honor Prize is awarded to students graduating this September. The purpose of these awards is to provide support and encouragement to students who have excelled academically, possess outstanding character, have displayed strong leadership which has contributed to achievements in a variety of activities, and are expected to become future leaders of the Asia-Pacific region. Recipients of the Award will receive 500,000 yen. The recipient of the Honor Prize will receive 1,000,000 yen and have the honor of representing the graduating class in an address at the Degree Conferral Ceremony.

In the public screening, each finalist who passed the rigorous initial screening made a video presentation on the theme of "Cite an example of your efforts in either your academics or extracurricular activities that you engaged in while a student at APU. Explain how you will leverage your takeaways from those efforts in the future in order to contribute to society.” Presentations were then followed by a Q&A session with the judges in both English and Japanese.

There were four finalists for the Award and three finalists for the Honor Prize. Congratulations to the following three recipients!

＜Honor Prize＞

KARINA Viella Darminto (College of Asia Pacific Studies 4th year, Indonesia)
Karina was highly evaluated for her efforts to solve menstrual poverty by distributing free sanitary products and holding educational events to raise awareness of the issue among both men and women as well as directly applying the knowledge she gained through her courses in her activities. In the future, she aims to start her own business that uses IT to solve poverty and is expected to make important contributions to solving the world's poverty issues.

＜Award＞

PUTRI Naila Dira (College of Asia Pacific Studies 3rd year, Indonesia)
NAIRA was recognized for her active participation in research and advocacy activities for NGOs in Indonesia and international NGOs to achieve empowerment for women. We hope that she will make the most of what she has learned in her APU classes and the experience she has gained through her extracurricular activities and make further progress in realizing her dream of working for the United Nations in the future.

NAKAYAMA MIHO (College of Asia Pacific Studies 3rd year, Japan)
The award recognizes Miho’s strong belief that "garbage is a treasure" and her efforts to start and run a composting club on campus as well as her activities to spread composting in the local community. In the future, she is expected to make important contributions to solving environmental issues by tackling the larger problem of food waste and promoting environmental education for children.