Sylff News

The Sylff Association secretariat had the pleasure of welcoming Marici Cristine Gramacho Sakata, a fellow at the University of São Paulo, to its Tokyo office on January 9, 2026.

“I’m very excited to finally be here,” Sakata said of her first visit—not only to the Sylff office but also to Japan, the country of her father. “I’m very grateful for the Sylff fellowship,” she added, which she received in 2006 while pursuing her doctorate in communication science at USP’s School of Communications and Arts. “It was very important for my studies and my career.”

She is currently travelling with her family to major cities in Japan and will also visit Taiwan to make arrangements for a tour she will lead later this year for Brazilian school owners.

She worked as a researcher at USP’s Information Systems and Technology Research Lab—where she helped organize the annual International Conference on Information Systems and Technology Management—and also served as an assistant editor of the Journal of Information Systems and Technology Management.

She now organizes educational tours aimed at informing school owners of management trends in countries outside Brazil. “We work with the local governments in arranging these tours,” she explained. “Last year we went to Switzerland, and we’ve also visited Portugal. We were in Japan about five years ago, but that was before I became involved.”

These trips are designed to give owners a better understanding of the benchmarks being used at primary and secondary schools in other countries.

“It’s very interesting to see the interactions of this group while we’re traveling,” Sakata says. During the school year, many private school owners have limited opportunities to learn how other schools are addressing recent changes in the educational environment—such as student use of smartphones and AI. These fact-finding opportunities are therefore very valuable for them.

“Education is not just a government obligation; it’s also a business,” she points out. “Many participants operate major schools with thousands of students, but when traveling together, they don’t see each other as competitors. They really seem to cherish the experience.”

Sakata expressed her hope of applying the lessons from her current trip to Japan to make a greater contribution to the Sylff community in São Paulo and beyond. The secretariat was heartened by her offer and looks forward to sharing her future engagements with the broader Sylff community. (Compiled by Nozomu Kawamoto)