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Korea’s braille smartwatch developer Dot wins HackOsaka 2018 pitch competition

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See the original story in Japanese. Osaka City held the annual startup conference HackOsaka 2018 last month, having about 100 participants including investors, entrepreneurs and media from home and abroad. As marking the sixth such event since being started in 2013, their way to introduce trends of global startup ecosystem to entrepreneurs in the Kansai area has become more cultivated. At the last phase of the event, 10 teams comprising domestic or foreign startups gave pitches. The judges for the pitch competition were as follow: Junko Nishimura (Co-founder, Silver Egg Technology) Oko Davaasuren (Regional Director of South East Asia, Techstars) Oscar Kneppers (Founder, Rockstart [Netherland]) Gidi Schmerling (Director of Media Relations, Tel Aviv-Yafo [Israel]) Shan Lu (Founding Partner / CEO, LeaguerX) Allen Miner (CEO, Sunbridge / HackOsaka Supervisor) Peter Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief in Japan of Tech in Asia / Founder of Best Beer, acted as master of ceremonies. Gold Prize: Dot (Korea) Korea-based Dot developed the braille smartwatch under the same name. It enables the visually-impaired to exchange messages or to understand SNS posts as with general smartwatch. Costing only $290 which is much cheaper than conventional braille keyboards costing about $5,000, it will be welcomed as a gift item. The…

See the original story in Japanese.

Osaka City held the annual startup conference HackOsaka 2018 last month, having about 100 participants including investors, entrepreneurs and media from home and abroad. As marking the sixth such event since being started in 2013, their way to introduce trends of global startup ecosystem to entrepreneurs in the Kansai area has become more cultivated.

At the last phase of the event, 10 teams comprising domestic or foreign startups gave pitches. The judges for the pitch competition were as follow:

  • Junko Nishimura (Co-founder, Silver Egg Technology)
  • Oko Davaasuren (Regional Director of South East Asia, Techstars)
  • Oscar Kneppers (Founder, Rockstart [Netherland])
  • Gidi Schmerling (Director of Media Relations, Tel Aviv-Yafo [Israel])
  • Shan Lu (Founding Partner / CEO, LeaguerX)
  • Allen Miner (CEO, Sunbridge / HackOsaka Supervisor)

Peter Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief in Japan of Tech in Asia / Founder of Best Beer, acted as master of ceremonies.

Gold Prize: Dot (Korea)

Korea-based Dot developed the braille smartwatch under the same name. It enables the visually-impaired to exchange messages or to understand SNS posts as with general smartwatch. Costing only $290 which is much cheaper than conventional braille keyboards costing about $5,000, it will be welcomed as a gift item. The firm succeeded in downsizing of the display on the face utilizing its 30 patents. The firm won the pitch competition at Slush Tokyo 2017 as well.

Dot also developed the braille tablet Dot Pad ($950), as well as the simplified version Dot Mini ($200, for educational use). The firm plans to distribute several million products in India, where there are 10 million visually-impaired people. In addition, the firm started the development of the braille kiosk as a new project targeting Smart City Project in Dubai and had tested it at PyeongChang Olympics. The firm has currently been doing business in the U.S. and China, and is going to enter the Japanese market soon.

Silver Prize: Eye Control (Israel)

It is estimated there are 160 million patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) having muscle and nerve disorder, and the number of ALS cases has been increasing. The Eye Control team knew the communication device for ALS patients costs too much, and had started developing a wearable device which is cheaper and easier to use than the conventional devices.

Eye Control detects motion of the pupil by mounted camera and sends the data to microcomputer to analyze the meanings that a user wants to transmit. The analyzed content is sent to smartphone via BLE and is read out or controlled. One of the biggest features of this system is to eliminate troublesomeness of using a large display. The team was born out from Startupbootcamp in 2011 and was chosen for Next Future Technology award by Israeli tech media Geektime.

Bronze Prize: Carbyne (Israel)

In emergency calls such as 911 in the US as well as 110 (police) and 119 (fire and ambulance) in Japan, some problems have been arising in recent years: long calling time, fake calling, incorrect location, difficulties in prioritization of multiple calls or nonexistence of images to confirm the situation.

Israel-based Carbyne transmits 110 / 119 emergency calls to its own system, and acquires detailed and well-summarized information including location or images to support prompt rescue or appropriate response. It has already been introduced to the Mexican teleco América Móvil, as well as national projects in Honduras and the Philippines.

Bronze Prize: Nature Remo (Japan)

Nature develops an IoT product for smart air-conditioner named Nature Remo. The firm secured more than 22 million yen (about $210,000) through three crowdfunding at Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Makuake. It was chosen for 500 Kobe Accelerator, the acceleration program hosted by Kobe City and 500 startups and had recently fundraised 100 million yen (about $940,000) from Daiwa Corporate Investment.

As its development and production system has been established, the firm started selling the product at Amazon, as well as electronics retail stores such as Bic Camera or Kojima, allowing general users other than early adopters to purchase. Through cooperation with Kansai Electric Power, the firm took part in the verification project of Virtual Power Plant, the energy self-sufficient system as a substitute of power resources in the energy peak time by utilization of internet / sensor technologies and diffusion of distributed type power resources.

Bloodhero (Philippines)

The blood transfusion system, required for accidents or surgery, is generally maintained by blood donation from 1% of the total population and yet blood is in short supply. As a result, there are not a few cases that the family of patients who need blood asks for blood donation of specific blood type in social network services. Bloodhero is a social platform of blood donation to solve these problems.

The Bloodhero users can acquire points for every blood donation and are given status according to stored points; the service prepares various privilege such as free ticket of spa in each status level. In a hospital which introduced Bloodhero, the retention rate of blood donors increased by 23%. The firm aims to reach 50,000 blood donations handling by December of 2018.

Ouireward (France)

One million people experience cancellation or delay of flights annually in the world. In Europe, airplane companies are required to compensate passengers for a delay of more than three hours under EU261 Law. Generally, passengers can receive $700 back in cash at the highest but need to negotiate with airplane companies to claim the right. This negotiation requires troublesome processes; they have to submit many documents and wait for several months, and sometimes their requests are refused.

Ouireward provides a simple online form where users can fill within three minutes and performs the negotiation procedure on behalf of them. It charges 25% of cashback money as intermediate fee. Since its launch six months before, the firm has dealt with customer requests from 37 countries, negotiations with 79 airplane companies and has collected $160,000 cashback. Considering cooperation with airplane companies, the firm aims at $2 million fundraising and tie-up with Japanese airplane / insurance companies.

Yiyuan (China)

Yiyuan offers a skin condition diagnosis service that AI (artificial intelligence) evaluates patients’ face photos taken by the mobile app. Making landmarking on specific spots on the face and diagnosing the conditions before and after the treatment using deep learning, it advices patients whether they are recovering nicely or need additional treatments.

In the future, the firm plans to monetize by providing API (Application Program Interface) or SDK (Software Development Kit) for cosmetic retailers or upgrading the telephone support service. It has been given an angel investment from LeaguerX, the accelerator supported by QF Capital and Tsinghua University.

Travelio (Indonesia)

Travelio, approximating the Airbnb in Indonesia, aims to provide a higher-class service than typical vacation rental services. The firm performs property management on behalf of real estate companies, and provides hotel-level services including cleaning and sheets changing to travelers having demands of long-stay, leisure or business.

The firm currently provides the service in 25 cities within Indonesia and handles 3,000 properties. The ratio of domestic / foreign users is 65 : 35. This service is used on average 4.95 nights per stay and is seemingly popular among long-stay travelers who tend to make much of cost performance. Although many buildings have been constructed recently in Jakarta, not a few properties are left unsold. The service also contributes to monetization of these properties for real estate developers.

BackTech (Japan)

The lower back pain improvement app Pocket Therapist, launched by Japan’s BackTech in 2016, suggests the best exercise plans or introduces good clinics for each user based on the lower back pain evaluation algorithm developed by Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University. The firm had raised funds from Cyber Agent.

Lower back pain is one of the common diseases of general workers and is also a severe problem for employers because it causes poor productivity. Pocket Therapist provides an environment where workers can easily receive advice from therapists, and enterprises or insurance companies pay the cost as their employers.

Protectiq (Russia)

Protectiq is a P2P (peer-to-peer) insurance service which applies the sharing economy concept. In developing countries, insurance services have not been improved much and that is one of major causes of death due to tumors or other forms of cancer. This service realized a cheaper charge system by utilizing blockchain technology into the insurance fee payment procedures and clarifying the cashflow.

Specifically, Protectiq users are charged $20 annually, and the insurance fee can be paid by third party donors or companies as a service to society. Targeting young and less wealthy adults in their teens to 40s, the service pays insurance premium of $350,000 at the highest based on users’ declaration.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Internet of Things key players from Japan, Taiwan reveal next-gen trends of entrepreneurs

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This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes. On Tuesday, Makers Boot Camp joined a special Monozukuri Conference organized by Osaka City and held at Osaka Innovation Hub, getting together key players in the hardware ecosystem to introduce new trends for the next generation of entrepreneurs. The main lecture was given by Osamu Ogasawara, CEO of Tokyo-based hardware incubator ABBALab CEO Osamu Ogasahara. HWTrek team members Roger Wu, VP of Supply Chain, and Alan Jung, Business Development for Japan, brought their international expertise from manufacturing in China and Taiwan, and our CEO Narimasa Makino presented Makers Boot Camp partnership with Kyoto Shisaku Net, a group of over 100 local manufacturers that combined their business strengths to face daily industrial challenges, focused on their prototype expertise (Design for Manufacturing). The purpose of the panel discussion was to talk about new ways that collaboration in hardware can lead to a win-win business environment SMEs can benefit from. The main topic was introduced by Ogasahara,…

sabrina-sasaki-150x150This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes.


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L to R: Moderator Gen Tagaya (Business Innovation Center Osaka), Osamu Ogasahara (ABBALab), Narimasa Makino (Makers Boot Camp), Roger Wu (HWTrek), Alan Jung (HWTrek)

On Tuesday, Makers Boot Camp joined a special Monozukuri Conference organized by Osaka City and held at Osaka Innovation Hub, getting together key players in the hardware ecosystem to introduce new trends for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The main lecture was given by Osamu Ogasawara, CEO of Tokyo-based hardware incubator ABBALab CEO Osamu Ogasahara. HWTrek team members Roger Wu, VP of Supply Chain, and Alan Jung, Business Development for Japan, brought their international expertise from manufacturing in China and Taiwan, and our CEO Narimasa Makino presented Makers Boot Camp partnership with Kyoto Shisaku Net, a group of over 100 local manufacturers that combined their business strengths to face daily industrial challenges, focused on their prototype expertise (Design for Manufacturing).

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L to R: Moderator Gen Tagaya (Business Innovation Center Osaka), Osamu Ogasahara (ABBALab), Narimasa Makino (Makers Boot Camp), Roger Wu (HWTrek), Alan Jung (HWTrek)

The purpose of the panel discussion was to talk about new ways that collaboration in hardware can lead to a win-win business environment SMEs can benefit from. The main topic was introduced by Ogasahara, part of his own experience as a serial entrepreneur, leading recent IoT trends in Japan, not only for ABBALab and the DMM.make ecosystem but also for Sakura Internet.

See also:

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DMM.Make in Akihabara

Ogasahara spoke about the challenges to start changing the common sense to a new market, focused on small and medium-size manufacturing industries and its specific needs. Just as the internet has revolutionized the information industry, manufacturing is following the digital age, and there are many opportunities available in the current industrial structure for SMEs to develop and adapt more quickly to the market’s new demands.

In addition to this movement, automation evolution and factories using 3D printers, such as the China movement of manufacturing-based entrepreneurs with a focus on gathering in Shenzhen, is massive and growing more and more, starting a new way of manufacturing: smaller lots, targeting customized products for connected devices.

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HWTrek

The concept of connected devices and IoT (Internet of Things) leads to a range of new opportunities to solve most of our current problems: large corporations can’t handle them, as its structures are solid and change demands more time than our resources can wait. The solution then remains on small and medium enterprises, who must play an innovative role and be open to try new things out, as startups have been doing actively and constantly.

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Alan Jung, Business Development for Japan, HWTrek

Roger encouraged entrepreneurs to invest time and energy talking to the new creators in order to try to find alternative applications for their own products and technologies: new projects are coming out, from many hubs in the world, as HWTrek platform has proven, and partnerships between creators and experts can lead to new approaches and different solutions.

The audience, composed by around a hundred SMEs, was interested to share insights about how to change the common sense and consider the new IoT market: a new business model for the manufacturing industry. During the networking session, innovative cases of new business in IoT were presented by HWTrek, to introduce creators that will come to Japan in November to network with local enterprises.

jisedai-monozukuri-kaigi-20161004-4
Roger Wu, VP of Supply Chain, HWTrek

Makers Boot Camp is co-organizing the next Asia Innovation Tour 2016 with HWTrek. The tour will start in Shenzhen on November 2nd and arrive in Japan on November 7th, with the following two events open to the public.

  1. Monozukuri Hub Meetup (sponsored by Kyoto City): Japan as a Starting point for IoT – November 7th (Monday)
  2. Osaka Innovation Hub: HWTrek Meetup – November 8th (Tuesday)

If you’re interested to know more about Design for Manufacturing, join our next meetup on October 12th at MTRL Kyoto, where we’ll make a direct bridge Paris-Kyoto, bringing Japanese and French makers and talk about ways to get ready for manufacturing.

See also:

Osaka University promoting photonics startup activities

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Tokyo-based “Tex” Pomeroy and Kyoto-based Taijiro Takeda contributed to this story. See the original story in Japanese. Osaka University Photonics Center, which conducts advanced R&D on advanced photonics including laser and nano-optics, held it’s seventh “Photonics Day” on 2nd February at the university’s Suita Campus. This project commenced as a startup/product development project in 2011. Beginning with 4 projects selected in the initial year, followed in 2012 by 3 projects and in 2013 by 2 projects, a total of 9 projects out of 44 applications are being carried out under approval; to date all projects have had some input from the university, whether at faculty or student level. Of the many project results for this year’s Photonics Day, one of the most noteworthy was “the eco-light bulb adopting a thermal radiation spectrum”. This new type of incandescent light bulb, by opening 100nm-order holes on the filament surface, enables control of hear emission. By cutting down the infrared emission level, the temperature is kept down while realizing a light-emission ratio of nearly 90% which is better than that offered by the light-emitting diode (LED converts 50% of the electric power it uses to light, while the conventional incandescent light bulb offers…

Tokyo-based “Tex” Pomeroy and Kyoto-based Taijiro Takeda contributed to this story.


photonics-center-kawata
Osaka University Photonics Center Executive Director Satoshi Kawata speaks at a press briefing.
(Photo by Taijiro Takeda)

See the original story in Japanese.

Osaka University Photonics Center, which conducts advanced R&D on advanced photonics including laser and nano-optics, held it’s seventh “Photonics Day” on 2nd February at the university’s Suita Campus. This project commenced as a startup/product development project in 2011. Beginning with 4 projects selected in the initial year, followed in 2012 by 3 projects and in 2013 by 2 projects, a total of 9 projects out of 44 applications are being carried out under approval; to date all projects have had some input from the university, whether at faculty or student level.

Of the many project results for this year’s Photonics Day, one of the most noteworthy was “the eco-light bulb adopting a thermal radiation spectrum”. This new type of incandescent light bulb, by opening 100nm-order holes on the filament surface, enables control of hear emission. By cutting down the infrared emission level, the temperature is kept down while realizing a light-emission ratio of nearly 90% which is better than that offered by the light-emitting diode (LED converts 50% of the electric power it uses to light, while the conventional incandescent light bulb offers a conversion ratio of only 10%).

eco-light-bulb
The eco-light bulb adopting a thermal radiation spectrum (Photo by Taijiro Takeda)

White LED lighting has limitations as to wavelengths and thus seem “cold” to the human eye, while incandescent bulbs can realize full wavelengths – some restaurants still retain the old lighting system in the foods section due to this. However, large manufacturers like Panasonic and Hitachi are now dropping production of the old light bulbs so the product can gain this niche market when it becomes available widely.

Other topics such as multilateral collaboration and fund procurement were also discussed at the event. Photonics Center Executive Director Satoshi Kawata noted that he hopes to realize as is Schumpeter’s idea that “innovation is not technological revolution but the building of a new paradigm” and urged participants to actually produce results with their own hands.

Regarding other items unveiled by the Photonics Center, the website links are as below:

Hankyu Corporation to launch startup incubation office in Osaka

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See the original story in Japanese. Osaka-based railway company Hankyu Corporation announced on Thursday that it will launch a membership-based incubation office in Osaka called GVH #5. The facility, to be set up near Osaka-Umeda station, will help entrepreneurs connect with each other in order to form a startup community. This initiative will be conducted in partnership with SunBridge Global Ventures, which has been operating Global Venture Habitat Osaka, an incubation space in the Grand Front Osaka building complex. See also: Osaka City Government establishes incubator and fund for local entrepreneurs Can Osaka be a startup hub? Translation app Waygo wins HackOsaka pitch contest They aim to invite entrepreneurs who are interested in developing services in such spaces as urban transport, retailing, community development, entertainment communication, and life-related services. Several incubation initiatives have begun in cities in Japan, represented by the declaration of Fukuoka city to be a startup hub or launching their incubation space. It will be interesting to see how the railway company can generate synergy in the local startup scene.

hankyu_featuredimage
Cc-licensed picture via Flickr.

See the original story in Japanese.

Osaka-based railway company Hankyu Corporation announced on Thursday that it will launch a membership-based incubation office in Osaka called GVH #5. The facility, to be set up near Osaka-Umeda station, will help entrepreneurs connect with each other in order to form a startup community. This initiative will be conducted in partnership with SunBridge Global Ventures, which has been operating Global Venture Habitat Osaka, an incubation space in the Grand Front Osaka building complex.

See also:

They aim to invite entrepreneurs who are interested in developing services in such spaces as urban transport, retailing, community development, entertainment communication, and life-related services.

Several incubation initiatives have begun in cities in Japan, represented by the declaration of Fukuoka city to be a startup hub or launching their incubation space. It will be interesting to see how the railway company can generate synergy in the local startup scene.

ghv5-1

ghv5-2

Osaka City Government establishes incubator and fund for local entrepreneurs

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On Friday the Osaka City Government launched a startup incubation facility located just in front of the city’s largest railway terminal. The Osaka Innovation Hub is situated in the R&D center complex of Knowledge Capital, which was previously used as a cargo terminal for Japan’s national railway company. The facility has co-working spaces and 3D printing devices, and is exhibiting innovative scientific products such as a virtual fitting booth, or an android story-teller developed by notable scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro. It also organizes programs for aspiring entrepreneurs to learn more about starting a business, including letting them visit notable startups or incubation facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The facility is a part of the city’s startup incubation efforts, which were first announced last February. At that time there were a number of guests from VC firms from Japan and around the world, including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure and Sunbridge’s Allen Miner. Local governments in Japan are struggling because most new business and startups are very much concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area. So some municipal governments beyond the capital are exploring ways to accelerate their local economies, helping entrepreneurs set up in their regions. In addition to the incubator, the Osaka…

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A cafe at Knowledge Capital (Photo: Kansai Walker)

On Friday the Osaka City Government launched a startup incubation facility located just in front of the city’s largest railway terminal. The Osaka Innovation Hub is situated in the R&D center complex of Knowledge Capital, which was previously used as a cargo terminal for Japan’s national railway company.

The facility has co-working spaces and 3D printing devices, and is exhibiting innovative scientific products such as a virtual fitting booth, or an android story-teller developed by notable scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro. It also organizes programs for aspiring entrepreneurs to learn more about starting a business, including letting them visit notable startups or incubation facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The facility is a part of the city’s startup incubation efforts, which were first announced last February. At that time there were a number of guests from VC firms from Japan and around the world, including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure and Sunbridge’s Allen Miner.

Local governments in Japan are struggling because most new business and startups are very much concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area. So some municipal governments beyond the capital are exploring ways to accelerate their local economies, helping entrepreneurs set up in their regions. In addition to the incubator, the Osaka City Govenment is planning to form a startup fund in the range of 50 to 100 billion yen (approximately $50 million to $100 million) in partnership with private equity companies. They aim is to develop more than 100 business through this effort in the coming three years.

mayor_hashimoto
Mayor Toru Hashimoto aspires to create more startups from Osaka.

To providing the appropriate support for startups in the incubation facility, Silicon Valley-based Japanese venture capitalist Hiroshi Menjo and Evernote Japan’s CEO Hitoshi Hokamura joined the managing committee.

On a related note, local digital companies in the city will co-organize a hackathon event at the facility on May 11th, where the top prize winner can receive 500,000 yen rewards in cash. It is our honor to serve them as a media sponsor.

A tough-luck Japanese factory rebounds with an inspiring new side business

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The economic crash of 2008 impacted business of all sizes, and a small auto parts and electronics processing factory in Osaka was no exception. Hiyoshi Packing Corporation, now a company of nine employees, suffered a big decrease in orders and was forced to cease a business partnership between its sister factory in California. The machines shut down, filling the factory with an overwhelming silence. In the midst of such crisis, what did the company do? They decided to create jobs on their own by leveraging their existing technology — but in a very different way. Working as a vendor for different manufacturers, Hinako Hara, the CEO of the company says that she had always wanted to create original products under the company’s name. They had the machines, facilities, and highly trained skills developed from fifty years of operation. A giant leap After careful consideration and many discussions, Hiyoshi ended up going in an entirely unexpected and very unconventional direction. They made business card cases which they named ‘harrytoree,’ meaning “stick” and “tear off” in Japanese. The product holds your business cards with an adhesive sticking area which can be used over and over. You simply tear off a new card…

The economic crash of 2008 impacted business of all sizes, and a small auto parts and electronics processing factory in Osaka was no exception. Hiyoshi Packing Corporation, now a company of nine employees, suffered a big decrease in orders and was forced to cease a business partnership between its sister factory in California. The machines shut down, filling the factory with an overwhelming silence. In the midst of such crisis, what did the company do? They decided to create jobs on their own by leveraging their existing technology — but in a very different way.

Working as a vendor for different manufacturers, Hinako Hara, the CEO of the company says that she had always wanted to create original products under the company’s name. They had the machines, facilities, and highly trained skills developed from fifty years of operation.

A giant leap

harrytorre_cardcase

After careful consideration and many discussions, Hiyoshi ended up going in an entirely unexpected and very unconventional direction. They made business card cases which they named ‘harrytoree,’ meaning “stick” and “tear off” in Japanese. The product holds your business cards with an adhesive sticking area which can be used over and over. You simply tear off a new card whenever you need one. Check out the demo video below to see how it works for yourself.

The made-in-Japan product can be bought online through the harrytoree website for a price of 714 yen (or about $8), or you can find them on Amazon Japan. We’ll let you know if the product becomes available to oversea buyers.

From the design to colors and even to the marketing strategy, Hiyoshi Packing Corporation managed to do everything on its own. Hinako who inherited the current position from her father says that if it wasn’t for the economic crisis, harrytoree may never have been born. The case has even won an award at one of the largest exhibitions for stationary and paper products, the International Stationery and Office Products Fair Tokyo.

Applying highly trained skills and technologies in a completely new way is definitely exciting, and I hope to explore more examples like this one in the coming future.