Japan is home to one of the most active Power Platform communities in the world.
For instance, the Japan Power Apps User Group has hosted more than 50 community events since 2018 — covering everything from tips to use cases and demonstrations. Not only that, the community leaders of Power Automate and Power BI communities are also very passionate about empowering the community members to learn together.
With the number of Power Platform users and citizen developers growing in Japan, let’s meet the brains behind the group, five Business Applications MVPs, and find out what makes their community so unique.
Business Applications MVP Makoto Maeda says that IT literacy is relatively low in young people and that the group offers a fun, interactive way to improve education.
“I’m sure that more people are getting to know how attractive Power Platform is, and I like to promote it by helping users make the best use of the services,” Makoto says.
“We learn together, share worries and talk about everything. The members give me joy, and so I’m always looking forward to seeing them virtually every week.”
In terms of the industry, MVP Hiroaki Nagao notes that more and more jobs are including Power Platform as a preferred skill, which is encouraging more and more people to learn the suite of software applications.
“In the future, I believe we will see more opportunities for people who have gained experience in the business sector to work as consultants who can improve and build their own business processes and environments. I think the role of citizen developer, including the Power Platform, has had a huge impact on the industry in terms of creating this new career path.”
MVP Ryota Nakamura says that the group actively supports the momentum toward citizen developers with instructive sessions, a fun atmosphere and social media interactions. Going forward, Ryota would like to “deliver technical sessions that align with the business story and share the collaboration story of various technologies beyond the communities.”
Another MVP who works closely with the group is Junichi Kodama. Junichi presents and blogs about his original apps created with Power Platform because he wants “everybody to know that anyone can build whatever applications they like.”
Likewise, MVP Teruchika Yamada simply wants more people to know the power of the platform.
“Community leaders have helped me a lot — so, I like to pay it forward to other members,” Teruchika says. “Whenever I receive kind words at a community event and on social media — ‘your information helped me’ — it makes me extremely happy.”
For more on the user group, see the community pages and Facebook, Japan Power Apps User Group.
