On December 18th, an exchange meeting for working people and students, "Yawa Lab Enlarged Edition", was held at the "Hirosaki University Bunkyo-cho" memorial hall "Collaboration Hongdae".

This exchange meeting was planned for the purpose of creating a network between university students and working people. The current founder, Hirogen Sakurada, mayor Hirosaki says, "Currently, it is held twice a month, so you can join or leave halfway, no application is required. If you can create new things with ideas born from loose exchanges."

Mayor Sakurada launched its predecessor, the Soft Network, in 2008 when he was an employee of Hirosaki City Hall. "In the beginning, we had the idea of "doing that" and "doing this" in order to promote new tourism in a conference format, but when it came to the "Who would do it?" I looked back.

In 2013, the name was changed to “Yawa Lab” and the venue was moved to Hirosaki University and opened. Held as a place where people of all ages can gather and socialize and students working in the same area can transcend boundaries. “You don't have to limit yourself to standing styles or one theme so that you can talk freely, you can just listen or just listen,” Mayor Sakurada said.

In 2015, there were many crimes targeting female college students and voice calls to children, so we installed 20 security cameras and 50 security lights. In addition to listening to the opinions of the students who participated in the Yawa Lab, he said that he cooperated with the installation while observing the site with the surrounding town chairmen. There are also plans that were realized from Yawa Lab, such as creating a Hirosaki sightseeing map for new first grade students and opening a student pub at the initiative of students.

Over 50 people participated on the same day, and among the participants were four high school students. Mayor Sakurada said, “There are many good things in the local area, but it is difficult to know everything because there is little information. Instead of making new things, we make an opportunity to see and to know with the idea of “making something useful”, I hope I can think with my students how to make the most of it."

Shuhei Ota, a first-year student in the Faculty of Humanities who participated, said, “I was invited by a friend. I was able to talk to adults who I could not meet and sort out what I wanted to do and what I could do. I feel like I want to participate again next time”.