From classroom to boardroom: entrepreneurs from Japan's teaching programs lay stakes many miles from home

Japan, Inc., August, 2003 by Marcus Chidgey

EVERY YEAR, THOUSANDS OF young people from all over the world come to live in Japan as part of the many teaching and exchange schemes. Most arrive with only a smattering of Japanese, but eager to begin their new lives abroad. They expect to stay for only one or two years. It's the opportunity for a post-university career break--the chance to travel and to do something different before settling into their chosen careers back home. Little do they suspect just how profoundly their Japan experience could affect them.

The largest of these schemes is the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. What started as a small, government-sponsored experiment in education exchange has now, at the end of its 15th anniversary year, surpassed all expectations, bringing over 6,000 young people to Japan from 39 countries around the globe. Depending on their Japanese ability, applicants become either Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) or Coordinators of International Relations (CIRs). ALTs are put into a class with a Japanese teacher of English to team-teach "Oral Communication" classes, whereas CIRs tend to work in local government offices, doing everything from document translation to organizing local sports events.

If you throw that many young, intelligent and motivated people together in one cultural melting-pot, you can be sure that remarkable stories will emerge. Julian Ehrhardt's experience is a prime example. Deferring his place on a management trainee program in the United Kingdom, he arrived in Japan as an ALT in July 2000. Realizing that JET participants developed specific needs while abroad, he built a community Web site called Jetsetjapan.com. Offering a well-presented mix of product deals, services and practical information, it soon became the No. 1 online resource for JETs. "I came into contact with many businesses wishing to target my members, and with the advertisers and partners I had built up by the end of the year, I was managing to draw an income equivalent to my JET salary."

With the continuing success of Jetsetjapan.com assured, Ehrhardt decided to leave teaching, turn down his traineeship and expand his business operations, forming Mojo Japan Ltd. "JETRO and Trade Partners UK were especially helpful and provided me with the support I required to set up an office in Kobe."

The World Cup saw Ehrhardt's firm acting as consultants to an overseas sports marketing agency, organizing corporate hospitality in Japan for the likes of Adidas, Budweiser and McDonald's. He has recently opened a bar--"Sally's Bar"--in central Kobe, and his London-based design and communications venture, Digital White Ltd, has established an enviable client list over the last year. It has recently secured a contract to develop the entire web and print campaign for a major overseas bank in Japan. "There are strong opportunities [in Japan] for those with an entrepreneurial spirit and staying power. Participating in the JET Program gave me a strong network of contacts in the UK," Ehrhardt says. "Former JETs who move into fields of business related to Japan, in sharing an understanding and common experience, are keen to work with former JETs such as myself."

However, business has not been the only area in which the JET connection has been an advantage. The international charity Go M.A.D. was set up by former JET Angie Peltzer. After finishing university in the US, Peltzer started teaching as an ALT in Nagano in 1999. "I would never have been able to create Go M.A.D. if it were not for the opportunities that the JET Program afforded to me. I cannot put into words how amazing the JET community is," she says. "They have spent countless hours fundraising, and teaching their students about how they too can help children in need."

It was a volunteer trip to an orphanage in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand, during Peltzer's first year in Japan that provided her with the inspiration to start up her own NGO. "It was heartbreaking to see children sick with malaria and measles lying in their beds alone with no one to love or care for them. While the staff tried their best under the conditions, the facilities were hopelessly inadequate. The small amount of time and money I contributed as a volunteer at Sangkhlaburi really seemed to help."

On returning to Japan, Peltzer couldn't forget what she'd seen. "Going back to teach the rich, well-educated students at my school in Nagano and doing nothing somehow seemed wrong after my experiences at Sangkhlaburi." Finding that many smaller projects around the world were having difficulties recruiting volunteers, Peltzer knew the answer might lie in using the Web. "Over the next year, a group of us put together the Go M.A.D. Web site. The idea was to provide an information clearinghouse for small social projects all over the world."

Go M.A.D. has been hugely successful. To date, it has sent nearly 100 people on projects abroad raising nearly [yen] 1.5 million for charitable causes. In addition, its annual "Christmas Cards That Give" appeal has raised more than [yen] 5 million over the last two years.