Kyoto Computer Gakuin

Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa organized the "FORTRAN Research Seminar" in Kyoto in 1963. This became the roots of Kyoto Computer Gakuin and the KCG Group of institutions. There was an urgent need to have this kind of research group studying programming languages. However, there were neither accessible computer equipment nor books on computing in bookstores and FORTRAN could be used in Japan on a few computers which at that time were all imported. Under the ill-equipped environment of those times, Yasuko Hasegawa, the incumbent KCG president, struggled to develop a computer education system. In 1986, KCG co-founder Shigeo Hasegawa died at the age of 56.

The FORTRAN Research Seminar was started as the independent seminar which studied the uses and applications of FORTRAN. All the attendees were young research scientists from Kyoto University. "The FORTRAN Research Seminar" was renamed as the "Kyoto Software Research Seminar".

The uses of software was studied from a wider perspective, as the Kyoto Software Research Seminar group took in members not only from the academic community but from various sectors of society and subsequently the members found themselves involved in various educational activities.

The latter part of 1960s saw the emergence of Japanese made computers. By using the locally made "HITAC-10" computer, the seminar group was able to conduct courses on programming and as students increased, Hasegawa’s group had to rent an extra room as a computer laboratory.

In 1969, the "Kyoto Software Research Seminar" was renamed as "Kyoto Computer Gakuin". In the subsequent years, computer facilities of the school rapidly increased with the growing demand for computer education.

In the beginning, KCG founders Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa set the example by taking it upon themselves to transport the HITAC-10 in their car whenever there was a need to give lectures in faraway venues.

Later, KCG acquired the medium-scale-computer of Toshiba; the TOSBAC3400, IBM's main frames—the IBM 370, 4341, 3031; the large-scale UNIVAC (later called UNISYS) 1100, 1106 computers. In 1983 when the PC was just coming out of the market, KCG acquired a large number of PCs and initiated a PC Loan Program lending PCs to all KCG students for free.

Even the major universities did not engage in any such program, but this is one of the early evidence of the KCG founding president’s clear vision for the development of computer education in Japan.

The International Development of Computer Education (IDCE) program is a special program to expand computer education initiated in 1988 by Yasuko Hasegawa and her daughter Yu Hasegawa (a.k.a. Yu Hasegawa-Johnson). Over the past several years, the IDCE program has donated almost 3,000 computers and provided computer instruction to countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. IDCE's launched its first project by donating 350 8-bit personal computers to the government of Thailand. The computers were distributed to Thailand’s secondary and upper level schools in 1988. IDCE then went to other countries such as Ghana, Poland, Kenya, Peru, and Zimbabwe.[2] As of March 2008, 21 countries have been benefited by IDCE.

IDCE's goal is to widen access to basic computers for educational purposes in developing countries, where often there is no public access to computer technology. The program aims to enhance basic computer literacy and serves also as a medium for encouraging cultural exchange between Japan and participating countries.[3][4]

The KCG Group of institutions also has academic exchange agreements with various institutions with Information Technology programs in the US (Rochester Institute of Technology College of Imaging Arts and Sciences and B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (RIT), in Asia (China's Tianjin University of Science and Technology (TUST), Dalian University of Foreign Language, Fujian Normal University, Nanjing University of Technology and Korea's Korea University Graduate School of Information Security), Cheju National University, and in Europe (the Czech Republic's VSB-Technical University of Ostrava).

On May 15, 2008 the KCG Group (including KCG and The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics) and the University of Pardubice, one of the best national universities in the Czech Republic held the world's first online academic exchange agreement signing ceremonies between two universities in Japan and Europe. The KCG Group and the University of Pardubice signed the memorandum of understanding for academic exchange agreement by holding ceremonies using video conferencing technology.

KCG’s academic agreement with RIT was established in 1996. Since then KCG organizes the RIT Summer workshop where students get the chance to attend classes at RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences and B. Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences and have a feel of campus life in the US as well as see the sights in Rochester, Niagara Falls and New York City.

The Kyoto Japanese Language Training Center is an institution accredited by the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education and authorized by the Ministry of Education as a preparatory school (currently there are only 17 approved schools in Japan).

The office has been established in the Parliament Library of Beijing in 2002, as base of deeper academic exchange with Chinese universities and to support IT education in China.

The office was established in World Trade Center in 2000 as a base of overseas projects of the KCG group. The office was moved to the Rockefeller Center in 2004 and resumed operations after the terrorist attacks in New York City.