June 1st, 2003 saw the opening of the ITU-Waseda ICT Centre, a collaboration between the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Waseda University of Japan. Housed at the Yokosuka Research Park (YRP), near Tokyo, the centre will provide support to the telecommunication standardization and development activities of the ITU by providing expertise in IT networking, mobile communication, network security, digital content creation and other emerging technologies.
It will also work with the ITU in the area of human resource development for information and communication technologies (ICT) by providing graduate training programmes as well as seminars and workshops that will support standardization and development activities. The selection of up to 30 researchers and 30 student participants will be made jointly by both partners, and information about the application procedure will be distributed to telecommunication entities and academic institutions, as well as posted on the Waseda University and ITU Web sites, as soon as it is available.
The park is the base of more than 70 government and corporate research laboratories, and the Mayor of Yokosuka City expects the new centre, "To generate great synergy and partnerships for global collaborations between government, university and industry."