Kyoto Computer Gakuin (KCG) is Japan's first private computer educational institution in Japan founded in 1963 by Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa. KCG is the main institution of the KCG Group. KCG’s Eki-mae is the main campus which is centrally located near the Kyoto Station. KCG also has other sites at the Kamogawa Campus which houses the Computer Graphics Art Department and the Rakuhoku Campus where the Computer Informatics Department is found. The KCG group is also composed of The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics (KCGI), the Kyoto Japanese Language Training Center (KJLTC), KCG Career, Inc. and KCG Co., Ltd.--- all global education-related institutions. Over nearly half a century, KCG has developed a strong and growing alumni network of 37,000 members who are currently active in the Japanese information industry.
History
Kyoto Computer Gakuin was established by Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa in 1963. Yasuko Hasegawa, the first woman to be enrolled at Kyoto University's doctoral program in Astrophysics, formed a study group for IBM 709/7090 and started teaching to young faculty and graduate students at Kyoto University. They called the workshop as "the FORTRAN Research Seminar" which was later renamed as the "Kyoto Software Research Seminar". This workshop became Kyoto Computer Gakuin (Kyoto School of Computer Science) in 1969. Japan was then entering a period of economic growth and recovery in the post-war period and computers were still rare at that time. Only a handful of organizations like major banks, university research centers and airline companies possessed computer technology. At that time, people asked: "Why should the average person study computers? What is the computer for?" "What do we need computer education for at this time?" But Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa, both educators, had the foresight of the future society in the IT era.
Founders
Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa organized the "FORTRAN Research Seminar" in Kyoto in 1963. This became the roots of Kyoto Computer Gakuin and the KCG Group of institutions. There was an urgent need to have this kind of research group studying programming languages. However, there were neither accessible computer equipment nor books on computing in bookstores and FORTRAN could be used in Japan on a few computers which at that time were all imported. Under the ill-equipped environment of those times, Yasuko Hasegawa, the incumbent KCG president, struggled to develop a computer education system. In 1986, KCG co-founder Shigeo Hasegawa died at the age of 56.
From Kyoto’s FORTRAN Research Seminar to The Kyoto Software Research Seminar
The FORTRAN Research Seminar was started as the independent seminar which studied the uses and applications of FORTRAN. All the attendees were young research scientists from Kyoto University. "The FORTRAN Research Seminar" was renamed as the "Kyoto Software Research Seminar".
The uses of software was studied from a wider perspective, as the Kyoto Software Research Seminar group took in members not only from the academic community but from various sectors of society and subsequently the members found themselves involved in various educational activities.
The latter part of 1960s saw the emergence of Japanese made computers. By using the locally made "HITAC-10" computer, the seminar group was able to conduct courses on programming and as students increased, Hasegawa’s group had to rent an extra room as a computer laboratory.
In 1969, the "Kyoto Software Research Seminar" was renamed as "Kyoto Computer Gakuin". In the subsequent years, computer facilities of the school rapidly increased with the growing demand for computer education.
Outreach program: The early years
In the beginning, KCG founders Yasuko and Shigeo Hasegawa set the example by taking it upon themselves to transport the HITAC-10 in their car whenever there was a need to give lectures in faraway venues.
Later, KCG acquired the medium-scale-computer of Toshiba; the TOSBAC3400, IBM's main frames—the IBM 370, 4341, 3031; the large-scale UNIVAC (later called UNISYS) 1100, 1106 computers. In 1983 when the PC was just coming out of the market, KCG acquired a large number of PCs and initiated a PC Loan Program lending PCs to all KCG students for free.
Even the major universities did not engage in any such program, but this is one of the early evidence of the KCG founding president’s clear vision for the development of computer education in Japan.