2000
Tokyo and Chengdu
Dr. Hideaki Kobayashi, CEO
Mr. Brian Bershader, Director
Dr. Jim Davis, Technical Advisor
Launched in 2007
Opening in 2011
The recent launch of our new design and training center at the South Zone of the Chengdu Hi-Tech Zone (CDHT) reflects fast-growing demand for our PIP-trained design engineers. It also reflects an important milestone between the Knowledge Edge Group and Sony LSI Design Inc. Until now, Knowledge Edge has provided critical outsourcing design capacity to Sony LSI Design project sites in Japan. With the launch of project development work at the Chengdu Design Center, Knowledge Edge now becomes an offshore solution provider to Sony LSI Design.
Sony LSI Design Inc. plans to leverage Knowledge Edge's offshore delivery capacity in Chengdu to facilitate a major design operation by 2014. By this time 100 engineers would be employed, most of them current and future PIP graduates. Many will work in positions of leadership. We are very pleased to be an essential element in Sony LSI Design's long-term development plan.
The future looks bright at Knowledge Edge. If you want to be part of it > APPLY NOW.
The Knowledge Edge Group was formed in 2000 with venture funding as an advanced design and consulting services provider, with offices in Tokyo and Silicon Valley. Our client base grew rapidly to include Sony, Ricoh, Tokyo Electron, Alpine, and CMK. At the same time, Knowledge Edge started to run customized engineer training programs in Silicon Valley for the entry-level staff of several of these same clients.
The success of these training programs led company founder, Dr. Hideaki Kobayashi, to apply a similar model in China, where advanced engineering education was on the rise. Kobayashi envisioned a highly applied Silicon Valley-style training portfolio together with an intensive study of Japanese language, culture, and business practices. Admission requirements to the program would be extremely high, and those who successfully completed it would be uniquely prepared to launch great careers with Japan's top global companies. He soon had evidence that demonstrated the feasibility of this model.
In 2001 the Ricoh Electronic Devices Company (EDC) hired Knowledge Edge to lay the foundation for its first electronics devices development team in Shanghai, China. Over the next four years we hired and trained thirty recent graduates of top engineering departments at Chinese universities. The curriculum was an updated and customized version of graduate courses Dr. Kobayashi taught in the United States during the 1990's. We worked closely with the Ricoh EDC management to develop the curriculum.
In 2006 many of the engineers we recruited and trained joined Ricoh, and are now members of the core design group at its new development center in Shanghai. Through Knowledge Edge, Ricoh integrated top international offshore engineering talent, significantly enhancing its overall development capacity.
Building upon this success, in 2007 Knowledge Edge launched the Professional Intern Program (PIP). This unique training program leverages our relationships with computer and electrical engineering departments at many leading Chinese universities. PIP delivers a highly original—and academically accredited—curriculum.
Those accepted into PIP relocate to our dedicated training center in Chengdu, China in the middle of their senior academic year. There they learn applied technical skills and receive intensive instruction in Japanese language, culture, and business practices. PIP training continues for three to eight months following university graduation. At the end of this period, new PIP graduates join the Knowledge Edge Global Team at a project site in China or Japan.
PROFESSIONAL INTERN PROGRAM
Typically, new college and university grads are at or below Rank 1. But PIP grads are at least Rank 2 performers and have TOIEC 700 and J.TEST 650 capability.