Activity Report of Open Application Program 2024 vol.12 (Course A)
Mongolian students learn about Japanese science and technology in the fields of AI and semiconductors
Report from Kumamoto University
Prof. KITA Naoyasu
On Jan.6th to 10th in 2025, SAKURA Science Program (SSP) was implemented in Kumamoto, Japan. From school of applied sciences, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, 1 lecturer and 7 students attended this program. According to a prior interview on academic interest of students, it is found that all of them are students of applied mathematics and interested in "statistics". Because the aim of this program is to know "machine learning & semiconductor", I felt some anxiety about whether they would really enjoy this program.

【Jan. 6th】
The 8 participants arrived at Fukuoka airport from Mongolia. N.Kita (the host of this program) picked them up, and took them to the hotel in Kumamoto City by highway bus.
【Jan. 7th 】
A guidance of SSP was held at Kurokami Campus of Kumamoto University. After that, the participants worked on programing of neural network algorithm related with machine learning. It wasn't in lecture style, but in exercise style with Excel programing. Therefore, no students looked sleepy. It made me somewhat relieved. In this work, a competitive curriculum was included. It was to find a minimal value of error function (or loss function). The student who found the least value of error function was awarded with a certificate.

【Jan. 8th】
Quiz on semiconductor was held. The quiz was related on why semiconductors are applied to solar batteries, why many factories of semiconductor come together in Kumamoto area, and what is a recent serious problem in Kikuyou-Cho area – it is prospering with the semiconductor factories, etc. The students indicated their answers from the three options. The students who got the largest number of correct answers was awarded with a certificate. After finishing the quiz, we went for a tour at water science museum in Kumamoto City. In the cleaning process of semiconductors, a lot of pure water is required. The aim of this tour is to explore about the reason Kumamoto is called "a land of water". The key to solve this question is related with Mt. Aso! The students experienced and enjoyed some mysteries caused by water in the experiment room of this facility.

【 Jan. 9th】
We left Kumamoto City for Reihoku power plant in Amakusa area. The staffs of the power plant explained the amount of output power and the mechanism to generate electric power by coal, the application of woody biomass to reduce the CO2 emission, a plan to use solar power generators. After that, we were going for a tour inside the power plant. We were surprised to see that only 2 turbines of about 15m long cover 55% of the demand of Kumamoto area.

It was amazing that a block of coal mined in Australia or Canada looked so big like a rock. Mongolia also generates electric power by thermal generators with coal burnt, where the steam is cooled by air. On the other hand, Reihoku power plant employs the cooling method by sea water. That is why Reihoku power plant is built on the seaside of Amakusa.

【Jan. 10th】
Certificates of SSP-completion were sent to all the participants. We left the hotel for Kumamoto airport. We said Goodbye with hope that we will see somewhere again. Now, this program was safely complete.
[Contact Information]
nkita<at>kumamoto-u.ac.jp (Please replace<at> with @, the at symbol)