Message from the Founder

MESSAGE FROM FOUNDER

Don’t blame people.
Build systems.

I want to change a society in which children shut the lid on their own potential simply because school does not fit them.
We are building an education infrastructure that stands alongside school, and working to bring a rich education to children all over the world.

Tatsuro Hoshino
Founder and CEO of NIJIN / Education entrepreneur
Tatsuro Hoshino, Founder and CEO of NIJIN Inc.
PURPOSE Light up the world through education.
MESSAGE

There is no child
without light.

Hello.
I’m Tatsuro Hoshino, founder of NIJIN.

When I was an elementary school teacher,
I saw many children go through their days with no light in their faces.

What those children taught me, as their teacher,
is that there is no child without light.
And that lighting up their lives is how we light up a country’s future.

That is why I started NIJIN. The name carries two meanings:
niji (虹), “rainbow”, so that every person can live as who they are;
and ni-jin (二人), “two people”, because every person has the power to be happy and the power to make someone else happy.

To make a world in which everyone can have hope in education,
we made a decision: “Don’t blame people. Build systems.”

The work of lighting up the world through education
needs you.

Let’s do it together.
The time has come to change education, starting with its systems.

Tatsuro Hoshino
WHY NIJIN

Two places.
The same feeling that something was wrong.

Tatsuro Hoshino supporting education in Guatemala as a JICA overseas cooperation volunteer
GUATEMALA / JICA They want to learn, but they cannot.

There were children who wanted an education but could not reach it, held back by their circumstances and by the system.

Children building a new system of education at NIJIN Academy
JAPAN / SCHOOL They can learn, but school does not fit them.

In Japan, I worked with children who were able to learn, but whom school did not fit, and who ended up rejecting themselves.

The education gap in a faraway country and what felt wrong in Japan’s classrooms
In neither case
was the child the problem.
01 / JICA Learning what “out of reach” really means.

In Guatemala, I came face to face with an education gap that no one can overcome by their own effort alone.

02 / TEACHER I could reach the children in front of me.
But I could not reach beyond them.

After returning to Japan, I spent seven years as an elementary school teacher. While I gave myself to the children in front of me, I felt the reality that one teacher cannot reach the class next door, let alone beyond the school.

03 / 2022 So I founded NIJIN.

I set up NIJIN Inc. to build systems that stop the same problems from repeating, instead of relying on one person’s hard work.

The problem is not people.
What must change is the system.
Supporting the one child in front of us, and making sure the next child does not suffer from the same thing. To achieve both, NIJIN is building the systems of education themselves.
WHAT WE BUILD

That is why
we build systems.

Adding more businesses is not the goal. We have built the systems that were needed to remove, one by one, the “it can’t be helped” that children, teachers, schools and society live with.

01 / TEACHERS

So that no teacher
has to carry it all alone.

Jugyo Terrace

A teacher training platform where teachers learn from outstanding teachers across Japan and observe one another’s lessons. We are creating a place where teachers learn from each other.

1,200 teachers use it
02 / CHILDREN

So that no child has to reject themselves
just because school does not fit them.

NIJIN Academy

As an educational option that stands alongside school, we offer children a place, both online and in person, where they can choose the way of learning that suits them.

1,000+ students enrolled Attendance recognition rate: 97% / 400+ graduates and returns to school
03 / SOCIETY

So that education does not have to be
left to schools alone.

Co-creation with society and campuses across Japan

We create education together with companies, universities, local governments and local people, extending the places to learn and the people who support learning across the whole of society.

48 campuses across Japan
NEXT / VISION

Staying with
the one child in front of us.

We are aiming for 30,000, and not because we want to look big. It is to bring the option that the one child in front of us needed to every other child who needs it just as much.

ONE CHILD 1

First, we turn to the child in front of us. Together we find the place and the way of learning that suit them.

We turn the option that child needed
into a system.
VISION / JAPAN 30,000

Then we take that option to a scale where it reaches every child who needs it, wherever they live and whatever their family circumstances.

Staying with one child
and reaching many are the same challenge.

Not a choice between going to school and not going, but everyone being able to choose the education that suits them. We will make that normal: not a special option for a few children, but part of society’s education infrastructure.

01 / JAPAN Towards compulsory education with choices.

An education infrastructure alongside school, all across Japan.

02 / GLOBAL Japan’s teaching strength, to the world.

Taking what we know about developing teachers and co-creating with society to the regions education has not reached.

03 / FUND Towards education that does not depend on a family’s income.

Towards a system in which everyone has access to a rich education.

RECOGNITION

Our work,
recognised by society.

Awards are not the goal in themselves. But a new system of education is beginning to be recognised, from outside education too, as work that needs doing. We share that fact here as grounds for trust.

Tatsuro Hoshino, Founder and CEO of NIJIN Inc., the only person from Japan selected for JCI TOYP 2026, Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World
WORLD RECOGNITION

One of ten chosen worldwide,
and the only one from Japan.

Selected for JCI TOYP 2026 in the “Children, peace & human rights” category. Our work to change education through its systems is being recognised in Japan and abroad.

NIKKEI THE PITCH SOCIAL Grand Prix (top prize)
QWS STARTUP AWARD 2025 Top prize
JCI JAPAN TOYP 2025 Grand Prix / Prime Minister’s Encouragement Award
MORE ABOUT TATSURO

A little more,
in my own words.

What text alone cannot convey, how I think and who I am, comes through in video, in my book and in what I share day to day.

PITCH / NIKKEI Changing education, starting with its systems.

The pitch that won the top prize at NIKKEI THE PITCH SOCIAL. In my own words, I talk about the problems in education that NIJIN is taking on, and why we build systems in the form of a business.

CONTACT

Contact

For media, speaking, recruitment or partnership enquiries, please use this form.