The 1st JIEPP Japan-India Exchange Seminar was held on January 29, 2021 at 17:00 using the Zoom webinar platform and 56 people from universities and companies attended the seminar.

Associate Professor Takahiro Kato of the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology served as the moderator for the event and Professor Satoshi Watanabe of the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Engineering provided an explanation on the purpose of the seminar. This was followed by a lecture from Associate Professor Kotaro Kataoka of the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH).

The lecture, entitled "The Image of Human Resources in India and the Process to Acquire Them", covered a wide range of topics, including cultural considerations such as the difference in the meaning of "yes" in the workplace in India and Japan, a detailed explanation of IIT and IITH in particular, as well as an explanation of the recruitment process at IIT. Finally, based on the trend in the career choices of IIT students, he suggested ways for Japanese companies to recruit IIT students as well as other talented students from India. Associate Professor Kataoka concluded his lecture with a suggestion that in order to recruit excellent human resources from India, it is necessary for Japanese companies and universities to promote their own merits.

Professor Kunihiko Sadakane of the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, who served as a commentator, then made comments and asked questions. Professor Sadakane showed pictures of Indian landscapes from his own visit to India and mentioned that he was impressed by the politeness and high level of ability of Indian students. He asked about how the improvement of problem finding ability of Indian students was progressing, whether Japanese companies and universities are attractive to Indian students, and whether the comments in the lecture could be said about Indians in general, not just the excellent students at IIT. The moderator, Associate Professor Kato, also asked a supplementary question to the last question from Prof. Sadakane from the perspective of social stratification.

In response to these questions, Associate Professor Kataoka answered that the ability to find problems is an issue for Indian students as well, that knowledge about Japan in India is still not sufficient, but there are ardent fans of Japanese culture. Also he answered that although it cannot be denied that the financial resources of students affect their academic performance, there is support available for students who are not wealthy. Furthermore, Associate Professor Kataoka introduced an episode in which the world ranking of universities was the main clue for Indian students selecting a study abroad destination, but by explaining to such students that there are faculty members with high research capabilities at various universities, the index for selecting study abroad destinations changed.

The audience also asked questions about cultural background, IT talent acquisition, and the status of globalization of universities, to which the three speakers responded with their own insights.

At the reception held online after the seminar, about 15 participants gathered together and had a time to chat freely with the speakers and other people involved.

In the questionnaire, participants commented, “Dr. Kataoka's talk was very interesting because he is a local. I was glad that Prof. Kato's talk was not only about IT human resources, but also about a wider range of topics since he is a humanity major and knows the local situation well. I was surprised by the unexpected visuals of Prof. Sadakane's photo-sharing, which was different from the image of IIT = advanced IT university = city", "It was good to understand their characteristics for planning international exchange between Japanese students and IITH students", "I could understand the job hunting activities of Indian students".