2026 Greetings and Updates

New Year Greetings

Happy New Year.
In 2026, I want to enjoy work, hobbies, and everything else.

I hope everyone can live without overdoing it, at a steady pace.

Looking Back on 2025

I can already hear people saying I should have written this at the end of the year.
You’re right. I have no excuse.

Work Events

It wasn’t exactly a turbulent year, but I kept working steadily.
It’s been about two years since I started working at a university, and the mix of “I already know this!” and “This is new to me!” makes for a fun workplace.

I’d like to write about the details, but many things are hard to make public.
It’s not that they’re bad—just that a lot of them aren’t open or are difficult to explain.

If I list what I can:

Helping with the development of AI Sawaminori
Various data aggregation tasks
Various esports-related tasks
- Rules research
- Advisor for extracurricular activities
- Business trips
Various tasks around the Cross Design Lab

That’s about it.
(If this is a problem, I’ll delete it.)

About helping with AI Sawaminori: I assisted with research/development when we were working on an on-campus RAG project.

University press release
Official website!?

They even put my name on the developer page. Nice.

I wasn’t doing rigorous research; I was handling backend development and consultations.
I regret not building a more high-performance backend and would like to revisit it someday.

Next, about the various data aggregation tasks… I’ll keep it vague.
This one I really can’t write about.

As for esports-related work, it ended up being a series of turning points for me.

Press release about the esports education and research base

As the press release says, a very solid facility has been prepared.

An extracurricular program called KIT eSports Project was also launched, and students are working hard on event operations, tournament participation, and PR.
On the education and research side, students are actively doing research, and it’s impressive.

Extracurricular X (Twitter)
Program description page

During summer break, students led a programming workshop using “Puyo Puyo” for esports.
Participants seemed to enjoy it, so it was probably a great experience.

KIT Summer Inquiry Learning

I also went on a business trip to Tokyo Game Show as a participant.
I visited publishers and PC hardware companies to say hello and checked booths from other universities and vocational schools.

In 2026, I really want to be on the exhibitor side.

Finally, about the Cross Design Lab: many people probably wonder what that is, so here’s a brief explanation.

Cross Design Lab press release

In short, it’s a new research hub for information-related fields.
There are still many ongoing things, so I can’t go into details, but I’m involved in various ways.
That’s all. Maybe I can write more once things are open?

That wraps up the work section.
I’m grateful to be surrounded by kind faculty and staff.