Roland DG will conduct its Global SE Awards 2018 final competition from April 23rd through the 25th, where service engineers (SEs) engaged in the repair and maintenance of Roland DG products will put their skills and knowledge to the test. In the lead-up to the contest, we invited three of the 28 finalists from local competitions held around the world to provide more details about the type of service and support work they are involved in every day. First up to talk with us was one of the finalists representing the Asia-Pacific region, Tsubasa Utsumi.

Roland DG held its first ever One-Day Internships on February 7 and 14, 2018, with a total of 16 interns participating at the company's headquarters in Hamamatsu, Japan. The intern program was organized with the aim of providing students with real-life insights into employment situations and a chance to experience a working environment that may help them develop their career paths.

International brand Moleskine held its MOLESKINE TRADE SHOW Spring/Summer 2018 annual event on November 15 and 16 in Tokyo.

Membership-based factory Makers’ Base recently launched its new permanent shop Makers’ Base Chiba in the JUNNU wing of the Sogo Chiba department store in Chiba, Japan. Continuing from the first part of this blog series, Junpei Matsuda (photo, above), COO of Makers’ Inc., talked about the services available at Makers’ Base Chiba, as well as plans for the future.

Sogo Chiba, a department store located in Chiba, Japan, recently opened the doors to its newly refurbished JUNNU shopping wing and held the “JUNNU Christmas Night” opening event on December 8, 2017. Makers’ Base, a membership-based shared factory featured in previous editions of the Imagine blog*, opened Makers’ Base Chiba, a permanent shop at the refurbished JUNNU wing. On the day of the opening event, customers enjoyed creating customized items using photos that they brought in to the workshop.

In this part, Kazuharu Muramatsu of the company’s DGSHAPE Market Development Department who planned the workshop, and Fab Lab Hiratsuka Director and Associate Professor of Kanagawa University Faculty of Business Administration, Daisuke Doyo, who was the instructor at the event, talk about the background to the workshop and their thoughts after holding the event.

Roland DG held a fabrication workshop for educators and Fab Lab managers on September 9 and 16 at the Roland DG Creative Center located in the Tokyo Sales Office. The workshop was based on the concept of providing a fun approach to learning about electronics manufacturing, and was organized with the cooperation of Sony Corporation MESH project and Fab Lab Hiratsuka located on the Kanagawa University Faculty of Business Administration campus.

Roland DG conducted a 6-week internship program for international students from June 19 to July 28, 2017.

From July 31 to August 6, 2017, more than 1,000 Fab Labs around the world gathered in Santiago, Chile for FAB13, the 13th annual meeting of the global Fab Lab community.

ATÖLYE is an innovative makerspace and creative hub located in the center of Istanbul, Turkey that attracts an interdisciplinary network of designers, makers, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs and other creative individuals. With 700 m2 of space, it includes event space, seminar space, co-working space and a maker lab.

For the second installment of this two-part series, we interviewed Roland DG Japan Marketing Group’s Masakatsu Asako (photo above) who organized the caerasi Design Gala event in collaboration with caerasi. Asako expressed his thoughts on the event as well as future aspirations for the Original Print Service that is currently being rolled out in Japan.

Caerasi Design Gala, an event that was held in collaboration with several creators, ran from July 14 for three days at the Roland DG Creative Center located in the Tokyo Sales Office. The gala featured exhibits and sales of items like smartphone cases and canvas prints made by 11 popular, young artists.