Choices, for every talent.

Agora

Agora is a program where exceptionally talented young people engage in deep dialogue with AI to create something that does not yet exist.

Agora ｜ Session 1

A record of thinking with AI: an AI Olympiad medalist on growing more AI builders

Read the record →

The theme for the first session, held in July 2026, came from Hayato Yamai — a bronze medalist at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) 2025 and a senior at Japan's most selective high school. He wanted to democratize Kaggle, the world's largest machine learning competition, because growing the number of people who build AI takes an entrance where you can learn the principles.

Five people and an AI talked for two hours and arrived at a way of posing problems that Kaggle did not have. A month later that idea became Deep Black Box: 21 questions that let you work the principles of AI with your own hands.

Learning material

Deep Black Box ── open up the black box of AI one question at a time, with your own hands.

21 questions ／ just open it in a browser

Try it →

Edge

An incubation program where you find a problem to tackle, use AI to build a product that actually works, and ship it to the world.

We want them to see a bigger world.

Japan has remarkably talented young minds. But daily life at top schools is often consumed by cram schools and exam prep, and career paths tend to converge on "Tokyo University," "medical school," or "large corporations and government." These are, of course, excellent paths. Yet opportunities to encounter other roads — "launching something with your own hands, starting with entrepreneurship" or "taking on challenges on the world stage" — remain limited during school years. We want to create that first spark.

Some things can't be learned from textbooks.

Classroom learning has immense value. But actually building something, collaborating with a team, rallying people when nobody knows your name, and gradually earning trust — these lessons can only come from experience. Even a small product, built and shipped by your own hands, becomes a source of confidence if it works, and a valuable lesson if it doesn't. These experiences will serve you no matter what path you choose. No need to take big risks. Small challenges, in a safe environment. We design with parents' peace of mind in mind.

Around the world, young talent is already in motion.

Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind, became a chess master at 13, skipped two years of school exams, developed the hit game "Theme Park" at 17, graduated top of his class from Cambridge, founded an AI company, and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. He didn't stop at studying — he built, founded, and changed the world. Frontier AI companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are filled with people who demonstrated exceptional STEM talent early, including Math Olympiad medalists.

The US already has an ecosystem for young talent to take on challenges.

Universities, investors, and experienced entrepreneurs form a connected ecosystem where it's not unusual for top university students to launch startups while still enrolled. A culture of trying, failing, and trying again is deeply rooted. Japan has world-class scientific and engineering capabilities. If this country's brightest young people had the option to tackle the world's biggest challenges — that would be enormously valuable, both for them and for society.

That's why we're building this.

Starting with STEM, we provide selected participants with the chance to meet exceptional peers and build something together as a team. Drawing on the domestic and international network the founder has built through activities including the World Economic Forum in Davos, we also create opportunities to meet leading researchers and entrepreneurs at the front lines. We welcome not only Science Olympiad achievers but also those from humanities, arts, sports, and other backgrounds. We believe that when diverse talents intersect, more interesting things emerge.