Wacom's sales team want our products to reach as many people as possible. Sales team is naturally tasked with posting good sales numbers, but their wish to see "as many people as possible" use our products includes an affection for each pen tablet. They strive everyday to deliver as many tablets as possible to our clients, with a firm sense of mission to see that every tablet is put to use.

In spite of those efforts, several hundred products remain unsold every year because the package has been opened or because it was damaged during transportation. These products are almost unused and can still be used, but they sit in our warehouse for years where no one will use them.

"At this rate, they will be discarded. Letting these pen tablets, which are still usable, sit is a waste."

Standing in front of pen tablets sitting in our warehouse, Yoneshima, one of our sales team comes up with an idea.

"We can offer them to high school students who like to draw."

Yoneshima's idea led us to present them as an extra bonus to high school clubs and winners of high school competitions to help students create digital content. We want high school students use the pen tablets especially in areas where many works are analog, such as cartoons, fashion designs, and New Year's cards. This also helps with environmental efforts to reduce waste as much as possible.

More than 10 years have passed since our first effort. According to Yoneshima, many of the submissions to early art contests were analog works, but digital works have been submitted in recent years. Each salesperson's sales target and their desire to have a pen tablet fulfill its mission until the very end have led to our efforts to support the creation of digital content by high school students.