“Living Together, Growing Together” is more than a slogan at U Share. It is something residents experience through the people they meet, the communities they join, and the opportunities they discover.
Yuxuan Liu’s experience at the Tokyo International Business Competition (TIBC) 2026 offers one example.
Just two months after moving into U Share, Yuxuan and his multinational team won first place at the competition.
His teammates, Jake Smith and Praj Rompho, were people he had never met before. The three students came from China, the United States, and Thailand, spoke different native languages, and brought different academic and professional perspectives.
They had only one weekend to become a team, develop a business proposal, and present it to a panel of judges.
So how did they do it?
The answer was not just what happened during the competition. It began with years of international experience and continued through everyday life at U Share.
From China to Europe and Back to Tokyo
Originally from China, Yuxuan is an incoming master’s student in Computer Science and Engineering at Waseda University, starting in September 2026. He is also a software engineering intern at Bosch Japan.
After studying engineering in China, he spent 2019 and 2020 in Tokyo as an exchange student. He later lived and studied mainly in France and Finland for nearly four and a half years, while also participating in shorter academic programs elsewhere in Europe, including Italy. In 2026, he returned to Tokyo.
Those experiences shaped not only his career but also his research interests.
“Living in different countries made me realize that communication itself could become a research topic.”
Yuxuan is now developing an early-stage research proposal on how AI might support intercultural communication.
A phrase such as “I’ll come if I can” may be interpreted differently depending on the relationship, tone, and context. Rather than treating AI as a tool for decoding one fixed hidden intention, Yuxuan is exploring how it could present several plausible interpretations and clearly communicate uncertainty.
Having experienced Japan’s high-context communication style and the generally more direct communication styles he encountered in Northern Europe, cultural differences have become both an academic interest and one of the most fascinating parts of his everyday life.
Building a Winning Team Over One Weekend
When Yuxuan joined TIBC, he wanted to challenge himself.
Hosted by OVAL JAPAN, TIBC is the official selection contest for IBC, one of East Asia’s largest international business competitions.
Participants are assigned to multinational teams and meet one another for the first time at the competition.
Within two days, they must understand a business challenge, develop a solution from scratch, present it in English, and defend their ideas during a live Q&A.
Yuxuan’s team faced the challenge of designing a solution that could reduce employee burnout while maintaining organizational productivity.
Over the weekend, they developed IkigaiWork, a B2B software concept designed to help Japanese companies identify burnout risks before they lead to employee disengagement or turnover.
Their proposal combined employee check-ins, workplace engagement tracking, a burnout-risk dashboard, and a reward system encouraging sustainable working habits. The goal was to make invisible workload pressures more visible and actionable for both employees and managers.
After presenting the proposal and responding to questions from the judges, the team won first place.
For Yuxuan, however, the most meaningful part was not simply the first-place finish.
“The most meaningful part wasn’t winning. It was realizing that people from completely different backgrounds, meeting for the first time, could still create something valuable together.”
The Secret Was Surprisingly Simple
So what made the difference?
According to Yuxuan, it came down to two things.
The first was identifying each person’s strengths as quickly as possible.
“Time was extremely limited. Instead of trying to discuss everything together, we trusted each other and let everyone focus on what they did best.”
The team divided research, product concept development, prototype design, presentation preparation, and Q&A preparation according to each person’s strengths.
Rather than trying to make everyone do everything, they made their different backgrounds and abilities work together.
The second factor was having an open mindset.
“Living in international environments made me comfortable meeting new people and working with people from different cultures. Joining a randomly assigned international team felt natural.”
But openness is not something that appears overnight.
So where did he develop it?
How U Share Helped Turn That Mindset into an Opportunity
Yuxuan smiles when he talks about how he discovered the competition.
“Actually, the first step toward this challenge happened at U Share. I learned about TIBC from a poster in the residence. If I hadn’t seen that poster, I probably wouldn’t have entered.”
His openness to cross-cultural collaboration had developed through several years of international study and work. U Share gave him a place to continue practicing after returning to Tokyo and connected that experience with a new opportunity.
Living alongside students from different universities, countries, and cultures provided daily practice in communicating across differences.
He attended Japanese language exchange sessions, joined the Spicy Food Club, where residents shared Chinese and Mexican dishes, and participated in Japanese Movie Nights held at U Share.
“Those everyday conversations became practice for communicating across cultures. That made it easier for me to work with complete strangers during the competition.”
The connections extended beyond the residence itself.
At a residents’ gathering in Shibuya, Yuxuan met an engineer working at an AI company in Japan.
The conversation eventually led to a one-on-one mentoring session.
“It helped me picture my future career much more clearly.”
Living Together, Growing Together
In his first two months at U Share, Yuxuan found new ways to continue learning from people with different backgrounds and to connect his previous international experience with new opportunities in Tokyo.
Living together.
Learning from one another.
Supporting each other’s ambitions.
His experience reflects U Share’s philosophy:
Living Together, Growing Together.
“Don’t Wait Until You’re Perfectly Ready”
Before finishing the interview, Yuxuan shared one final message for anyone considering their next challenge.
“Don’t wait until you’re perfectly prepared. Opportunities often begin with something small: a poster, an event, or even a casual conversation. If something looks interesting, give it a try. Even if you don’t win, you will still gain something from the people you meet, the pressure you experience, and the challenges you face.”
Meeting people who are different from you.
Learning to appreciate those differences.
Taking the first step despite uncertainty.
Yuxuan’s story shows that everyday experiences can lead somewhere unexpected.
Perhaps your story will begin at U Share, too.
