A final screening and a commendation ceremony for "NTT docomo NEXT COMMUNICATION AWARDS 2017 (sponsored by NTT DoCoMo Tokai) were held in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture on January 6, 2018. The Gifu University Graduate School Student Team won first prize in an App Development Theme Category, "Apps to Attract More People to Towns."

At the final screening of the competition, presentations of nine apps selected in the first and the second screenings out of 3,218 applications from 63 schools, were made, and the best apps for three respective categories won first prize.

The Gifu University Graduate School Student Team created an app, "Leave it to Shiori-chan" by which users can plan ideal daytrips by simply entering keywords into their smartphones.

The team members and their supervisor reported their awarding to President Hisataka Moriwaki on January 16. In the meeting, President tried his hand at using the app and planned a daytrip by himself.

"The Gifu University team won a prize last year, and this year, we won first prize after so many trials and errors in database creation. We really won big this time," said one of the students.
The president celebrated their great achievement and said, "Your app was successfully selected from thousands of applications. Congratulations! People often talk about app development programs today, and such programs are already in place at our graduate school. I am very proud to see that a lot of Gifu University students have strong research-centric mindsets and being educated under a well-organized human resource development system. I wish that you all share the expertise and knowledge with your juniors aiming for another victory in the competition."