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Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from final batch present results

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See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) earlier this month held a Demo Day for the 12th batch of Tech Lab Paak, the startup accelerator based in Shibuya, Tokyo. 11 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 6 teams made 1-minute pitches (1 team was absence) and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling 17 teams. Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following were judges for the pitch competition. Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan) Ken Nishimura (Journalist / ex. Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan) Goushi Yamaguchi (COO, ProtoStar) Hiroshi Hata (Principal Manager of Startup Business Development Department , Amazon Web Service) Ayumi Iwamoto (Chief, Tech Lab Paak) Tech Lab Paak has been managed for three and a half years since its launch in December of 2014, but it is going to be closed at the end of June. The accelerator program is also scheduled to be terminated with this 12th batch. Yoichi Aso, the first head of the venue and the program,…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) earlier this month held a Demo Day for the 12th batch of Tech Lab Paak, the startup accelerator based in Shibuya, Tokyo.

11 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 6 teams made 1-minute pitches (1 team was absence) and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling 17 teams.

Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following were judges for the pitch competition.

  • Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
  • Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan)
  • Ken Nishimura (Journalist / ex. Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan)
  • Goushi Yamaguchi (COO, ProtoStar)
  • Hiroshi Hata (Principal Manager of Startup Business Development Department , Amazon Web Service)
  • Ayumi Iwamoto (Chief, Tech Lab Paak)

Tech Lab Paak has been managed for three and a half years since its launch in December of 2014, but it is going to be closed at the end of June. The accelerator program is also scheduled to be terminated with this 12th batch. Yoichi Aso, the first head of the venue and the program, had left Recruit this April and started two business of Alpha Drive and Genome Clinic.

Tech Lab Paak Award winner: Residential facility in space by Outsense

Supplemental prize: AppleStore gift cards worth 30,000 yen

Outsense is developing technologies for constructing residential facility in space utilizing three-dimensional developable structure like Origami (Japanese folding papercraft). As the space development moves ahead globally and manned activities on the moon are expected to begin in around 2030, the team tackles designing of residential facility, mockup creation or business development.

Unlike the conventional residential facilities on the moon, Outsense devised a concept of a roofed house design and is applying for a patent on that technology. The team has been improving functions of the facility not only for the maintenance of life but also for a space to live a comfortable life.

Microsoft Award winner: Kazamidori

Supplemental prize: king crab 1.5kg

Kazamidori offers solutions for general problems related to infant education. To provide an environment where anyone can receive a proper educational opportunity regardless of birth or background, the team takes on research and development of a data-driven and socially implementable infant education method. The team approaches to infant education from three angles: giving advice about caring of children domestically, improving work efficiency at nursery schools or kindergartens and reforming social systems through lobbying of governmental authorities. The research part is planned to be conducted as a non-profit organization (NPO) set apart from its main body of business.

Kazamidori is going to launch an infant educational media soon. In the end, the team plans to manage its own nursery school bringing together the knowledge acquired from all business sectors but thinks it is not easy to achieve the exit in its all business sectors at once due to the size of the business theme ranging over various area, so that it is considering a way to pay return to investors as exiting each business one by one.

500 Startups Japan Award: TOLETTA by Hachitama

Supplemental prize: Matsusaka beef and Kobe beef set

Hachitama develops Toletta, the IoT (Internet of Things) toilet for cat capable of checking up urologic diseases. It cleans cat excrement automatically, identifies each cat by image recognition and records usage information including weight, urine quantity or urination / defecation frequency. When any abnormal findings are detected, the information will be sent to their owners’ app. The team monetizes its service based on three factors: device / smartphone app, periodic purchase of recognized organic cat food and online consultation.

The most common cause of cats’ death is kidney failure and Hachitama aims to prolong cats’ lifespan by enabling the owners to realize their cats’ initial symptoms such as polyuria or weight loss. Coincidentally, Sharp had also recently unveiled a similar smart cat toilet product, but Hachitama aims to maintain priority by establishing diversified business strategy leveraging cooperation with pet food / insurance companies and database about cats / owners.

Hachitama was founded in 2015 (the company name was Pet Board Healthcare then). It succeeded in a crowdfunding campaign at Green Funding and was subsequently chosen for Morinaga Accelerator 2016 which is managed / supported by 01booster and Tokyo Accelerator which is managed by Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative. After that, the team raised a total of 40 million yen (about $380,000) from Morinaga, Kanshin Mirai Fund (managed by Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative), Actcall and 01booster, in addition to obtaining the subordinated loan from Japan Finance Corporation. The team won the Monozukuri Hardware Cup competition in March and was recently invited to the Global Hardware Cup 2018 competition in Pittsburgh as a finalist.

ProtoStar Award / Audience Award winner: Kimakuri by BloomScheme

Supplemental prizes: pair of meal tickets of Cuisine[s] Michel Troisgros / Champagne Taittinger 6,000 ml

BloomSheme develops a virtual try-on service named Kimakuri. It solves fashion users’ worries that they do not know whether clothes suit their faces or body types just by seeing magazine photos and it is bothersome to go shop to try them on but takes time to order the clothes from e-commerce websites.

On Kimakuri, users upload their face photos and input body type data in advance. The face photos are translated into 3D model and it shows a try-on image in the well-fitted style to the body type with each user’s face when a user chooses any clothes. The team plans to support single item changing in an outfit and 360-degree imaging in the future.

Users can share try-on images on social network services and can access e-commerce sites directly from Kimakuri allowing them to purchase the items. The team allows end-users to use the service for free and is considering monetization by charging fashion operators for account use, coordinate listing fee or website guidance fee. The team also considers adding a coordinate suggestion by a professional stylist as a premium function in the future. The team is applying for a patent for the system and plans to launch the closed beta at the end of June.

Nishimura Award winner: Ostrich antibody food science by VitaLonga

Supplemental prize: three meal tickets at boat-style restaurant (Yakatabune)

VitaLonga is a nutraceuticals (nutrition+pharmaceuticals) startup focusing on technology to use antibodies acquired from ostriches into food. The ostrich antibodies are much cheaper, resident to heat and stable to acid / alkali than general antibodies, so that they can be easily to added to food. By introducing ostrich antibodies against pollen allergen or influenza virus into food, various disease preventing effects can be expected.

Since antibodies delivered via invasive methods are considered as drugs, clinical trials are required to be given marketing approval. On the other hand, since food comprising antibodies are treated as additives which act only from taking by mouth until discharging from the body, the market introduction may be easier. The antibodies are separated from ostrich egg york and has low possibility of causing side effects. The team begins with the food additives and has been considering the application to health functional food or pharmaceuticals in the future.

AWS Award winner: AI for security camera analysis by VAAK

Supplemental prize: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen

VAAK develops crime prevention solution analyzing security camera images by AI (artificial intelligence). The total damage due to shoplifting is estimated to be 13 trillion yen (about $120 billion) in the world and 500 billion yen (about $4.5 billion) in Japan annually at least, and it is hard to fully stop just by introducing watchdog persons or prevention gates. The team utilizes existing security cameras or video recorders to provide cheap and efficient crime prevention measures.

This system analyzes shop visitors’ behavior scenario based on past crime data and shop visiting patterns such as their severe facial expression or furtive manner and notifies shop managers that shoplifting is likely to happen 60 seconds before that  happens. The system is applicable to suspicious person countermeasure or accident prevention, as well as to automatic settlement service without the cashier using the same technology. VAAK announced it had raised 50 million yen (about $450,000) from an undisclosed venture capital this April.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 9th batch present results

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See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereafter called Recruit) last month held a Demo Day for the 9th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak based in Shibuya, Tokyo. 14 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 10 teams made 1-minute pitches although they were excluded from the examination, and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling at 24 teams. Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition. Ken Nishimura (Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan) Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan) Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings) Tech Lab Paak Award: JobRainbow / ichoose by JobRainbow Supplemental prizes: The winner’s choice from Matsuzaka beef or Kobe beef JobRainbow and a job-offer website ichoose target LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), comprising one of every 13 persons. JobRainbow provides job-offer information about LGBT-friendly companies as well as interviews for recruitment staffs, benefits considering LGBT, or posts from LGBT workers such as “I got accepted…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereafter called Recruit) last month held a Demo Day for the 9th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak based in Shibuya, Tokyo.

14 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 10 teams made 1-minute pitches although they were excluded from the examination, and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling at 24 teams.

Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition.

  • Ken Nishimura (Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan)
  • Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan)
  • Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
  • Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings)

Tech Lab Paak Award: JobRainbow / ichoose by JobRainbow

Supplemental prizes: The winner’s choice from Matsuzaka beef or Kobe beef

JobRainbow and a job-offer website ichoose target LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), comprising one of every 13 persons. JobRainbow provides job-offer information about LGBT-friendly companies as well as interviews for recruitment staffs, benefits considering LGBT, or posts from LGBT workers such as “I got accepted by coworkers after coming out” in each company.

On JobRainbow, about 300 companies have currently been providing job-offer information and the number of users is about 10,000. The firm also launched ichoose especially focusing on job-offer function for LGBT two months before, and it has been adopted by 20% of the proposed companies. In addition, the firm runs an offline event to connect job seekers and LGBT-friendly companies named Real Job Rainbow, forming a community for information exchange not only about jobs but also work styles among users.

Microsoft Award: Folly by Artrigger

Supplemental prize: special crab meat set

Vincent Van Gogh is known for that his work had not been admired well in his lifetime but came to be traded after his death. Artrigger takes on preventing present artists from Gogh-like cases by providing an environment where they or persons concerned can grasp market value of the artists in real-time. The firm aims to realize visualization of market value in real-time based on product /author / copyright management information, targeting three markets: video, game, and book / paper / image / text from among many kinds of content industries.

Along with that, Artrigger developed a school management / portfolio tool named Folly for art educational institution of arts, in order to assist teachers to develop students’ talent without wasting time for clerical work. With trust bank, the firm had agreed to cooperate in demonstration tests for the market value visualization technology and asset planning / inheritance, donation, trust of intellectual property rights, leveraging each one’s field of expertise.

TechCrunch Japan Award: Gitai by MacroSpace

Supplemental prize: AppleStore giftcards worth 30,000 yen

MacroSpace develops a system of the tele-existence named Gitai. Putting sensors on controller’s body, this system sends motion data via internet to a robot in remote place and makes it to do the same motion with the controller.

Additionally, the firm developed a visual system allowing users with head-mounted display to experience 360-degree pictures photographed by camera mounted on robot in real-time. The data transmission for real-time 360-degree images requires broadband and sometimes transmission delay may occur. To improve this, the firm developed UDP-based P2P (peer-to-peer) streaming protocol and Linux-based Gitai OS, and succeeded in reduction of the band needed down to below 4Mbps from 330Mbps and of transmission delay time down to 0.08 seconds.

MacroSpace was chosen for Global Solutions Program 2017 operated by Singularity University. Through the program, the firm realized a cooperation with US-based startup SpaveVR providing VR environment with cameras on the circum-terrestrial orbit. The camera devices of SpaceVR are going to be launched with Space X rocket soon and the day you can experience live video of the earth from SpaceVR by using Gitai is probably not far. Macrosplace was also chosen for SU Venture, the acceleration program organized by Singularity University.

See also:

500 Startups Award: WIM (Worn Influencer of Movement)

Supplemental prize: AppleStore giftcards worth 30,000 yen

WIM develops cheap and small-driver artificial muscle from the perspective of availability for performance. According to Jun Kamei, the designer of WIM, the mainstream of artificial muscle has been shifting to the one made of alloy from the one with rubber pneumatic device, but the material alloy is still very expensive although the Japanese market is leading this field. WIM develops electric-driven artificial muscle made of polymer (Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscle; EPAM), attempting to reduce cost down to 1/100 (about $5 from $500 by material-based cost).

Although there may be some companies or research institutions developing EPAM ahead of WIM, the firm is distinguished by adopting this technology to performer’s costume and design and is expecting to enlarge the possibility of performance expression. In the beginning of the pitch, an example video at V&A (Victoria and Albert Hall) in UK which Kakei participated was shown.

Audience Award: Sharetr by Sharetr

Supplemental prize: Extensive membership of TECH LAB PAAK Project Member

Many of amateur football (soccer) coaches lecturing children in Japan have to handle hard tasks that they build a practice schedule and conduct it themselves as volunteers, although they have no official coach experiences. To solve such problem, Sharetr provides a platform under the same name allowing amateur coaches to share their practice schedules. The founder of the firm belongs to School of Health and Physical Education of University of Tsukuba, so that it also provides special menus to learn specialized knowledge supported by professors of the university.

After joined TECH LAB PAAK, this service grew to a big website attracting 200,000 monthly user views, 2,200 memberships, and 30,000 visitors of sports instructors. SEO, column publication via media, and Youtuber specialized in sports practice seems to be contributing to the increase of access. The firm cooperated with Japan Football Coaches’ Association (JFCA) in recognition of the firm’s value, and has been receiving JFCA practice schedules or selling items jointly.

While platforms of user experience in IT industry have shifted from video to smartphone, and to VR, the sports field still depends on DVD attached to magazines. Sharetr is going to expand its service enabling the watching of practice videos by smartphone easily, and aims to enter the sports-related field other than football to create equal opportunity of sports education with its new service under development, enabling to receive sports instruction at any place.

Audience Award: Photo Be-s by Quicpigeon

Supplemental prize: membership of Tech Lab Paak Project Member

Photo Be-s is, so to speak, a Pokémon Go-like app in photographing experience. When user with the app visits to a predetermined location, he / she acquires right to be shot by preset camera optimized for photogenic angle in advance and can get the photo by remote shuttering. It enables photographing from various angles which cannot be realized by selfie, such as through water tank, though window, or from drone.

Photo Be-s matches those who have beautiful space, own dead camera asset, or want selfie at an outstanding photographic spot. The firm has already completed a prototype, and tried test shooting at the Shibuya scramble crossing or held photography events inviting test users.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 7th batch present results

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See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereafter called Recruit) this month held a Demo Day for the 7th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak based in Shibuya, Tokyo. 13 teams gave 3-minutes pitches presenting their half-year’s results since joining the program. In addition, 5 teams made 1-minute pitches although they were excluded from the examination, and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling at 18 teams. Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition. Antti Sonninen (CEO, Slush Tokyo) Nozomi Okuma (TechCrunch Japan) Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan) Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings) Tech Lab Paak Award: Voicy Supplemental prizes: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen (about $270) and booth exhibition right at Slush Tokyo 2017 Voicy, launched last September, is a content reader mobile app having various voices including professional voice actors/actresses and amateur radio Disc Jockeys. The number of source media increased from 8 upon launch to 25, in addition to the number of channels increasing from 40 to 140….

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereafter called Recruit) this month held a Demo Day for the 7th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak based in Shibuya, Tokyo.

13 teams gave 3-minutes pitches presenting their half-year’s results since joining the program. In addition, 5 teams made 1-minute pitches although they were excluded from the examination, and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling at 18 teams.

Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition.

  • Antti Sonninen (CEO, Slush Tokyo)
  • Nozomi Okuma (TechCrunch Japan)
  • Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan)
  • Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings)

Tech Lab Paak Award: Voicy

Supplemental prizes: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen (about $270) and booth exhibition right at Slush Tokyo 2017

Voicy, launched last September, is a content reader mobile app having various voices including professional voice actors/actresses and amateur radio Disc Jockeys. The number of source media increased from 8 upon launch to 25, in addition to the number of channels increasing from 40 to 140. Attracting many applicants for the newcomer reader audition, there has been channels full of individuality by amateur to professional readers. The average stay time of the app exceeds 20 minutes in a day, and that may reflect the characteristics of the voice as a unique content.

Regarding the staff composition, Kanta Akiyama who was engaged in the establishment of a startup support project Sankaku at Recruit Career joined the team as COO, and Masayuki Ito who has enough experience of PL (project leader) or PM (project manager) at major IT vendors joined as CIO not to mention the current members at founding / CEO Ogata and CTO Yuji Kubota. This month, the firm announced a renewal of its UI and logo of the app as well as success in angel round-funding from 12 famous individual investors.

Microsoft Award: Fairy 720° by Cuelebre

Supplemental prizes: Pair meal ticket for Kaiseki course dinner, and booth exhibition right at Slush Tokyo 2017

Cuelebre develops a product called Fairy 720° which has the idea of drone plus voice recognition based on a concept of “daily life with a fairy” (fairy referring to the drone). When one uses a voice recognition assistant like Alexa, he / she has to move closer to it or speak as loud as the voice can reach. On the other hand, this device comes close on its own to a place where the user is.

Since the noises generated by drone’s power unit or propeller become an obstacle to the voice recognition process, this device moves silently to the desired location by being suspended from three points on the ceiling with strings and by controlling the tension degree of the string using remote-controlled motors. The team was chosen as a participant in the Program for Dispatching Global Entrepreneurs to the U.S. under the Project for Fostering Global Entrepreneurs run by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and this month exhibited the product at SXSW 2017 held at Austin, Texas.

Slush Tokyo Award: a handwritten-like letter writing service

Supplemental prizes: Sukiyaki set of Matsuzaka beef and booth exhibition right at Slush Tokyo 2017

Hiroshi Sato had hit upon an idea of making a robot write beautiful handwritten-characters and sending them as a letter, and therefore developed this system. At first, it could write Japanese characters only in fixed fonts such as the block style, but Sato succeeded in reproducing a slightly rough style as human handwriting through deforming fonts by its unique character-generation technology. Through results from a questionnaire-type survey, he received some feedbacks requesting a system for handwritten-like sentence styles or illustration, in addition to characters.

Sato’s immediate plans are to patent the character-generation technology and to recruit co-founding members, while securing a seed fund for commercialization. He implied that this service can support many languages other than Japanese if only successful in font customization of his character-generation technology.

TechCrunch Japan Award: a social VR service by Cover

Supplemental prizes: three meal tickets at boat-style restaurant (Yakatabune) Funasei and booth exhibition right at Slush Tokyo 2017

Cover, led by serial entrepreneur Motoaki Tanigo, exhibited a VR (virtual reality) / AR (augmented reality) social service for VR / AR users. Currently, it has been distributing the VR ping-pong match game Ping Pong League as its first product via the game distribution platform Steam, and plans to launch a VR Live system which is integrated with UGC (user generated media) or broadcasting system in the near future.

What this VR service is aiming to is largely categorized by two themes: the match game service and the UGC service. The team will take on development of a platform as an Internet service provider rather than as a game developer, and shows its stance in providing a free service continuously, not selling pay-for-play games. The team showed its enthusiasm toward expanding its service to social VR fitness services, VR mahjongg shops or VR experiences at sports centers.

Audience Award: Handful by Craful

Supplemental prize: membership right as a Tech Lab Paak Member

Craful offers online media focused on handicraft field Handful and has currently been posting 100 articles a month, attracting accesses from 500,000 unique users. CEO of Craful Takumi Ohno told that he also enjoys leather crafting as a hobby but had difficulties at the beginning in understanding which materials or tools were required. The firm plans monetization by selling starter kits for handicraft beginners or with an advertisement charge; 95% of the viewers are women with the largest segment being 25 to 44 years old.

The firm also runs CGM (Consumer Generated Media)-type media Craful, allowing users to share photo, idea or method of handicrafts, and fundraised a total of 39.6 million yen (about $360,000) from ES Networks, Colopl Next, SunBridge and Daiwa Corporate Investment this February.


Incidentally, Tech Lab Paak announced this day that it renewed the logo and rearranged the facility space. The new logo, co-produced by Justin Sharp and Junko Ikemura, was chosen as the first prize from submissions from the public. The current logo is designed as a pentagon with a motif of the top view of the building, while the new one is designed as a pentagon with isolated lines.

Aso, who is also Director of Tech Lab Paak, said that it appeals the brand image of Tech Lab Paak that keeps changing continuously by altering a part of the design of the new logo whenever opportunity appears. The logo renewal and the space rearrangement is scheduled in late April. Since no large-scale construction work is needed for the rearrangement, any temporary closing is not planned during the construction term.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Recruit shows off virtual reality startups from its Tech Lab Paak accelerator

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See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) held last month a Demo Day for the 6th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak in Shibuya, Tokyo. Six teams in the regular course and six teams in the VR (virtual reality) course made three-minute pitches presenting their half year results since joining the program. In addition, other nine teams made one-minute pitches which can be voted for the Audience Award although they were excluded from examination by judges, and thereby it became a big pitch event having 21 teams. Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event. Shintaro Yamagami (CEO, Colopl Next) Shinichiro Isago (Director, Business Strategy, LINE) Hiroshi Hata (Startup Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services Japan) Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings) Tech Lab Paak Award: HoloEyes Supplemental prize: pair meal ticket for a hotel dinner HoloEyes aims to make an information revolution in the medical field using VR. The firm was founded by engineer Naoji Taniguchi and…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) held last month a Demo Day for the 6th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Six teams in the regular course and six teams in the VR (virtual reality) course made three-minute pitches presenting their half year results since joining the program. In addition, other nine teams made one-minute pitches which can be voted for the Audience Award although they were excluded from examination by judges, and thereby it became a big pitch event having 21 teams.

Below, I introduced what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event.

  • Shintaro Yamagami (CEO, Colopl Next)
  • Shinichiro Isago (Director, Business Strategy, LINE)
  • Hiroshi Hata (Startup Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services Japan)
  • Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
  • Yoichi Aso (Head of Media Technology Lab., Recruit Holdings)

Tech Lab Paak Award: HoloEyes

Supplemental prize: pair meal ticket for a hotel dinner

HoloEyes aims to make an information revolution in the medical field using VR. The firm was founded by engineer Naoji Taniguchi and surgeon Maki Sugimoto (Associate Professor, International University of Health and Welfare Graduate School). The technology will be helpful for the medical world by sharing information of human bodies as 3DVR form.

The medical VR database will be constructed through collection of CT scan data and forming 3D human body models, while accumulating thereof. If searching a term “male, 60s, prostate cancer,” 3D images of matched cases will be output. Doctors can utilize them for diagnosis references of similar cases or training upon surgical operations.

The firm expects a business model providing VR viewers for hospitals and selling collected data after obtaining patients’ consent to medical colleges or pharmaceutical companies.

500 Startups Award: MacroSpace

Supplemental prizes: meal tickets worth 30,000 yen

MacroSpace develops a system for the tele-existence. With this system, users wearing sensors attached to the bodies can control remote robots with the users’ same motion via Internet. The existence of avatars in different places may realize “transportation”; tele-diagnosis or tele-education will become possible technically by setting avatars in depopulated areas lack of doctors or teachers. Since the size of robots is independent of the human body, larger robots can be controlled by users so that it can be also utilized for disaster rescues, for example.

The developer Sho Nakanose likened the possibility of tel-existence robots: “everyone can become ironman or cyborg”. The MacroSpace team aims to participate and win the tel-existence-focused global competition ANA Avatar XPRIZE which will be held in the US in 2020 with a total amount of prize money of $21 million. The firm had fundraised 15 million yen (about $130,000) in its seed round from Skyland Ventures and others.

Colopl Next Award: Embody Me by Paneo

Supplemental prize: Apple Store gift cards worth 30,000 yen

Sometimes it is difficult to subtle nuances or contexts accurately in communication with videos or voices such as Skype, as compared to face-to-face communication. Paneo supplements the insufficient parts of the online communication and provides an environment where you do not always have to meet and talk directly.

Although Microsoft has been developing a real-time rendering system using plural Kinect for 3D capturing of human bodies, it is not easy method due to requiring complicated preparation or environment as well as specialized studios. Facebook has been making similar efforts using Oculus also, but it is poor in expressing presences or takes time to create 3D models.

Paneo develops Embody Me which enables an easy creation of 3D models from face photos and allows a group chat system with them. It creates 3D motion pictures based on user’s movement captured by camera, and transfers them to the opposite party in real-time. The team plans to launch its flagship app for HTC Vive or Oculus Rift in early 2017.

LINE Award: Orario

Supplemental prize: a set of uncut boiled snow crab

Hiroki Yoshimoto who is a student of Ritsumeikan University had felt dissatisfaction with that information services provided by the university were scattered and not even be optimized for smartphones, so he started development of Orario. By registering log-in information for the university’s portal website, it gathers information by web scraping and displays information such as canceled classes or supplementary classes on the mobile app for each student.

35,000 students are enrolled in Ritsumeikan University, and the number of monthly active user of the app from the university reaches 18,000. The app is currently available for 8 universities and the team plans to cover 70% of student information for Japan’s top universities by next March. The app has a notebook / resume sharing function among students in the same classes, and the team aims to monetize by setting up a marketplace for trading these class materials in January or implementing a direct recruiting function targeting companies in the future.

Additionally, the team announced that it had raised 20 million yen (about $170,000) from a Japanese consulting firm Vector (TSE:6058) in December, seemingly in its seed round.

AWS Award: OTON GLASS

Supplemental prizes: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen and a lunch ticket for Amazon cafeteria

The founder of OTON GLASS had started development of the device under the same name because his father suffered from dyslexia, and subsequently the firm completed its 9th prototype with support from people with dyslexia and amblyopia. OTON GLASS recognizes what the user is looking at as visual information and reads them out with a voice through character recognition in order to help the weak-eyed people’ understanding. The firm also develops a translated reader function for non-Japanese users and another glass device named JINRIKI GLASS which forwards images to remote people to have the characters read out.

OTON GLASS team was turned out from Docomo Ventures’ 3rd incubation batch and recently won the third prize of James Dyson Award 2016 – Japan Chapter.

See also:

Special Award: STYLY by Psychic VR LAB

Supplemental prize: a visit right for Microsoft Japan’s Technology Center led by its Director Madoka Sawa

Psychic VR Lab develops a VR shopping platform focusing on fashion named Styly which conveys the appeal inherent in fashion items or fashion brands’ views online. Currently, about 30 brands have been took part in its test, and a virtual shopping demonstration with Styly at the Isetan department store in Shinjuku last year.

Although the service had been assumed to be used only in an environment well-equipped VR devices due to the popularization of VR, as it has become much easier for consumer users to prepare VR environment, the firm will intend to create services allowing VR experiences even with general PCs.

In this event, Psychic VR Lab revealed that it had fundraised an undisclosed amount from Colopl VR Fund and others in its seed round.

See also:

Audience Award: Orario and Macrospace

Supplemental prize: membership of TECH LAB PAAK as Project Member

Explanation of both products omitted since it has already been provided above.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 4th batch present results

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See the original story in Japanese. TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups. The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last week, a Demo Day was held for eight teams from community member and four teams (except one absent) from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in. Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event. Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan Hiroaki Yasutake, former Executive Managing Director of Rakuten Takahiro Iwakami, Founder and CEO, LIG International Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs, Recruit Holdings TECH LAB PAAK award winner: Styly by Psychic VR Lab Supplemental prize: Matsuzaka beef for BBQ Psychic VR Lab has developed an virtual reality-based online shopping mall named Styly,…

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See the original story in Japanese.

TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups.

The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last week, a Demo Day was held for eight teams from community member and four teams (except one absent) from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in.

Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event.

  • Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan
  • Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan
  • Hiroaki Yasutake, former Executive Managing Director of Rakuten
  • Takahiro Iwakami, Founder and CEO, LIG International
  • Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs, Recruit Holdings

TECH LAB PAAK award winner: Styly by Psychic VR Lab

Supplemental prize: Matsuzaka beef for BBQ

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Psychic VR Lab has developed an virtual reality-based online shopping mall named Styly, focusing on fashion items. By expressing the concept of fashion brands leveraging VR, it conveys the appeal of products and increases the customers’ buying motives.

It is not easy for fashion brands to implement this service due to labor or cost for creating 3D model data of products or shop design. In order to solve this problem, the team had developed a 3D scanner especially for apparel products or a shop builder function on Styly for easy 3D shop creation. Also the team had been involved in hosting a startup event for fashion-related startups at Fashion Tech Summit this March.

During the three months from July, the team plans a trial operation for about 30 fashion brands. Also for general users, an event for trial use will be held and details will be announced at a later date.

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Mentors’ special award winner: Residence

Supplemental prize: a pair meal ticket for the Azure 45 restaurant at Ritz Carlton Tokyo

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Alberto Okamura, who was born in Peru, once encountered a scene where his friend was forcibly deported to Peru due to irregularities upon acquiring his visa, and that motivated Okamura to solve the problem of visa acquisition. Since Japan’s immigration inspectors are just public employees who basically only speak Japanese and the application documents are written in Japanese, it is difficult for foreigners who cannot understand Japanese to communicate using this language.

Okamura had himself worked for Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, and been involved in visa-issuance work. Leveraging the experience obtained there, he developed Residence. The service displays questions that are required for terms utilized upon visa acquisition in the users’ native language, and outputs them as a form written in Japanese. In addition, it supports identify verification completed by Skype, proxy application by administrative scriveners and delivery of the issued visa to the users’ address for just 3,000 yen (about $29) but only document creation is free of charge.

Currently, 700 individual and 35 corporate users are registered. Six years hence, in 2022, it is said that one in 30 workers in Japan in his / her prime will be a foreigner. The team aims to provide additional services based on information obtained when acquiring the visa, such as job introduction in Japan, credit service for bank loans or visa acquisition in countries other than Japan.

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TechCrunch award winner: in app translation

Supplemental prize: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen

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in app translation‘ supports iOS app developers to easily construct a multi-language environment for apps. By controlling menu contents on apps by web-based dashboard, it saves on the labor involved in rebuilding apps for passing the screening by Apple. If errors in translation are found after the launch of apps, developers can smoothly handle corrections thereof.

Moreover, it enables analytics of language needs or receiving feedbacks on translation corrections from users via the dashboard, so that app developers can use them as reference upon deciding language priorities for multi-language development of the apps.

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Microsoft award winner: FlickFit

Supplemental prizes: Apple Store gift cards worth 30,000 yen

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FlickFit is an online virtual fitting service of shoes (especially focusing on shoes like pumps at this time). After registering the foot shapes as 3D data in advance, and users can confirm the fit feel prior to purchase by matching 3D data of feet and shoes.

3D data of shoes are acquired by templating with foaming material, not by the wooden last. The team has been developing the matching algorithm for 3D data of feet and shoes jointly with Chiba University, and currently improving it by joint experimentation with two third-party companies. Since a specialized scanner is used for 3D data acquisition of foot shapes, users have to go to certain scanning points for data registration, but the team is also developing another app for easy foot-shape data acquisition just by image photographing. The team expects needs from Omni-channel retailing, and explores the possibility of global expansion.

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LIG award winner: embot

Supplemental prize: a pair ticket for Tokyo Vingt-et-un Cruise, twilight gold course

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The name of Embot comes from ‘emotional robot.’ Inspired from the fact that no matter how smartphones have become widespread, there are still wall clocks or wall calendars in the world, so the team developed a ‘tangible’ robot which can be easily made from cardboard.

Through use-case investigation, the team has been developing embot for students as educational material at this time. As programming education system for junior high / high school students was enforced by Japan’s Ministry of Education, the team has been receiving inquiries from private schools and aims to construct a B2B (business-to-business) service which satisfies educational needs. Since operation log is accumulated on the server, it enables grasping of the learning progress status, and is also preparing a platform to provide customized learning contents for each student.

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Audience award winner: Residence / in app translation

Supplemental prize: membership of TECH LAB PAAK as project members (tenant right for half a year)

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(Explanation of both products omitted since it has already been provided above.)

TECH LAB PAAK has started accepting the 5th batch of tenants, and will start recruiting the 6th membership batch soon. From the 6th batch, new incubation courses focusing on VR will be established through cooperation with media, funds and manufacturers. In commemoration of this, a panel discussion was held during the Demo Day, having Hironao Kunimitsu (founder and CEO of Gumi), Minoru Hirota (Editor-in-Chief, Panora Virtual Reality Japan) and Kenji Takahashi (founder of ‘Ouka-Ichimon,’ Oculus-focused information website).

One can apply to the 6th batch regardless of whether a corporation or an individual, and presence / absence of products as well as the previous batch. Check out the details at the TECH LAB PAAK website.

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Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 3rd batch exhibit outcomes

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See the original story in Japanese. TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups. The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last month, a Demo Day was held for four teams from community member and six teams from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in. Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event. Yohei Sawayama, Managing Partner, 500 Startup Japan Kotaro Chiba, Co-founder and Executive Director, Colopl Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs, Recruit Holdings TECH LAB PAAK award winner: RE:GAIN Supplemental prize: Amazon gift card worth 30,000 yen (about $270) RE:GAIN is an online matching platform for rehabilitation. By summarizing information about diagnosis or healthcare of employees in…

tech-lab-park-3rd-demoday_all-partipants

See the original story in Japanese.

TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups.

The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last month, a Demo Day was held for four teams from community member and six teams from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in.

Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event.

TECH LAB PAAK award winner: RE:GAIN

Supplemental prize: Amazon gift card worth 30,000 yen (about $270)

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RE:GAIN is an online matching platform for rehabilitation. By summarizing information about diagnosis or healthcare of employees in companies, it matches those having a disorder and physical therapists. It has already been running in the US and yielded $6,000 as a net profit just in two months since launch last October, under which 170 rehab specialists have been registered.

Based on a B2B2E (business-to-business-to-employee) business model, it targets 4,000 US companies providing health plans with more than 1,000 employees, or 1,500 Japanese companies having an internal health insurance association. It has been used by Hawaii Pacific Health or sports club members at the University of California. In Japan, DeNA (TSE:2432) is going to start utilization from March as well, and other IT or healthcare companies are also considering adoption.

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Microsoft Japan award winner: LandSkip

Supplemental prizes: choice sirloin of Oumi beef for BBQ and Microsoft Azure credit worth $120,000

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LandSkip is a video distribution platform providing scenery videos from all over the world with 4K high-definition. Gathering video content owned by tourism industries including local governments or resort owners, this service distributes such online. User companies can display three-minute endless video clips on a large screen in office as an interior object.

The team plans to construct a system capable of distributing to more than 30,000 clients by cooperating with Japanese signage ad network company Microad Digital Signage (MADS). With most of the content being purchased from freelance filmmakers or others, alongside consumer plan users can utilize HD video distribution for free but are charged with that of 4K videos. As for a business plan, only 4K video distribution will be offered and be charged 30,000 yen (about $280) for monthly fee. In the future, it will enhance collection of overseas scenery videos.

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TechCrunch Japan award winner: Lifilm by aba

Supplemental prizes: a pair meal ticket for the Azure 45 restaurant at Ritz Carlton Tokyo and an exhibition right at the TechCrunch Tokyo 2016 conference

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Lifilm is an excretion sensor device designed for the elderly or the handicapped in need of nursing care. Most of bedridden people receiving nursing care wear diapers. However, caregivers cannot change diapers whenever necessary because excretion timing of care receivers cannot be known, so that caregivers do so at an undetermined time regardless of presence / absence of excreta. It has not been excreted (missing) at about 20% of the regular changing of diapers, and the loss time is a heavy burden on caregivers.

Lifilm detects the presence / absence of excreta using its own unique algorithm and notifies caregivers via tablets; it was developed by diverting inexpensive sensors from existing air cleaners, wherein the electrical resistance changes in accordance to odor or gas component changes. This device had been chosen for James Dyson Award Top 20, in addition to IoT Lab Selection by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. The team has already tied up with product manufacturers, and plans to start selling the products by early 2017 (the current expected price is about 50,000 to 60,000 yen, or about $500).

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500 Startups Japan award winner: DAncing Einstein

Supplemental prizes: three meal tickets at house-boat Funasei; boarding with participants of Geeks on a Plane East Asia tour in April

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DAncing Einstein, a startup focused on neuroscience, aims to develop more effective learning methods through clarification of the brain mechanism. Also, it has been holding seminars for enterprises or educators about learning based on MPS (memory platform system).

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Colopla award winner: MagicPrice

Supplemental prizes: two coupons for choice portion of unfarmed tunas and boiled snow crabs

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MagicPrice is an AI-powered strategic pricing platform which enables hotels or airline companies to propose optimal pricing at the time, neither too high for providers nor low for customers. Importing client companies’ data such as reservation history and crawling competitors’ data such as those of neighboring competitor hotels, it learns and computes the prices in real-time. The prices will be reflected on companies’ website or ticket reservation / OTA (online travel agent) website via ‘site controller’ systems.

The service eliminated functions requiring tech literacy, and was designed to automate operations as much as possible, for workers in hotels or airline companies are extremely busy. Leveraging the founder’s AdTech knowledge from previous positions, it provides the service in form of API (application programming interface). Currently, four companies are considering adoption.

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Audience award winners: MagicPrice and Subot

Supplemental prizes: membership of TECH LAB PAAK as project members (tenant right for half a year) and AppleStore gift card worth 10,000 yen (about $93)

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(MagicPrice explanation omitted since it has already been provided above.)

Subot is a scheduling robot that can be integrated with the Slack business chatting tool. When scheduling of a meeting is needed, you will need to search Google Calendar for participants’ spare time and present several choices. But this new tool improves working efficiency 2 to 10 times more compared to conventional manual scheduling with Google Calendar.

The beta version will be launched in early April. Although it supports only the combination of Google Calendar and Slack for the time being, further integration with other calendar and communication tools is planned for future.

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TECH LAB PAAK has started accepting the 4th batch of tenants, and will start recruiting the 5th membership batch soon. Regardless of whether a corporation or an individual, and presence / absence of products, one can apply. Please check out the details at the TECH LAB PAAK website.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Wrap up from Recruit’s Tech Lab Paak demo day; batch 1 teams present their results

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See the original story in Japanese. Tech Lab Paak, operated by Recruit Holdings (TSE: 6098), is a members-only community space aimed at IT creators which was founded in November of last year. I myself have had the opportunity to speak at many events at TECH LAB PAAK, which I used to recognize only as a community space, but actually their primary focus is on Recruit’s innovation emergence engine, Media Technology Lab (MTL) run by their R&D department. They also have an incubator program where startup teams can move in and get guided coaching. Resident startup teams are categorized into two groups based on the level of maturity of the service they are developing, project members and community members. On August 30th, each of the ten teams presented the fruits of the past half year at demo day. The following is a review of the lineup of winning teams from TECH LAB PAAK and the services that were or are in the process of being created. Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan Mark Bivens, Venture Partner, Truffle Capital Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan Akira Morikawa, CEO, C Channel Akihiko Okamoto, Managing Partner, Recruit Strategic Partners Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs,…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tech Lab Paak, operated by Recruit Holdings (TSE: 6098), is a members-only community space aimed at IT creators which was founded in November of last year. I myself have had the opportunity to speak at many events at TECH LAB PAAK, which I used to recognize only as a community space, but actually their primary focus is on Recruit’s innovation emergence engine, Media Technology Lab (MTL) run by their R&D department. They also have an incubator program where startup teams can move in and get guided coaching.

Resident startup teams are categorized into two groups based on the level of maturity of the service they are developing, project members and community members. On August 30th, each of the ten teams presented the fruits of the past half year at demo day. The following is a review of the lineup of winning teams from TECH LAB PAAK and the services that were or are in the process of being created.

‘TECH LAB PAAK’ Award winner: Cognitive Science × Computer Science Project by Ichihiko Ueno

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What Ichihiko Ueno is developing is in a field called “substitutional reality”. His research is on what sort of effects changing a person’s visual scenery have on their state of mind. Using a 360-degree video clip recorded at a specific location, it shows users a past view in their cardinal direction with a head-mounted display (HMD) so that they can feel like they are actually there.

For example, subjects could be able to view a prerecorded live performance with the sense that they are actually there in person. In contrast with the fact that virtual reality is an extension of the current state around where users are, this will broaden the possible uses by allowing them to experience even things that have already passed.

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‘Media Technology Lab.’ Award winner: DeployGate

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DeployGate offers a platform for easy distribution of apps within development teams for testing purposes in the process of mobile app development. Launched as an in-house project of Japanese social network service company Mixi, they spun off in March of 2015. In April, together with AppBroadCast, a Japanese media company focused on helping mobile gaming developers reach potential users, they released a test marketing specialized service for these developers called SakiPre, and in May the DeployGate enterprise version was launched with reports of profit.

DeployGate is considering expansion into the US market and are already holding meetups in tandem with Crittercism, a Silicon Valley-based startup offering a platform for measuring mobile app performance.

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‘C Channel Award’ winner: Chef’s Hippocampus by Yui Kita

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Acquiring cooking ingredient data from a variety of recipe sites, Chef’s Hippocampus is a mapping tool for cooking components. By pairing and grouping ingredients with contrasting characteristics, previously undevised recipes can be cooked up and new ways of cooking can emerge. Concretely, the combination of shrimp, orange, cheese, and cashews, as well as the grouping of shallots, boletus mushrooms, and chocolate was a success, while an example pairing olives with carrot and mayonnaise was not.

The developer of Chef’s Hippocampus, the University of Tokyo student Yui Kita, was selected in 2012 by the MITOU Program, a bi-annual software engineering promotion program run by the Governmental IT Promotional Agency of Japan. He continues giving presentations on the “development of programmable food” and his ongoing development of cooperation between technology and food.

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‘TechCrunch Japan’ Award winner: First Responder System “AED FR” by Makoto Gensho, Coaido

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For cardiac arrest victims, the most effective method of help is an AED (automated external defibrillator), but in many cases the most anyone nearby is capable of doing is calling an ambulance, and because no one is able to use an AED to restart the victim’s heart, the chances of saving that person are low. Coaido will create a database of AED stationing information from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, local governments, and AED makers. With the development of AED FR, upon judging from the nature of emergency “119 calls” to the fire department that a victim is in need of heart resuscitation, telephone operators will be able to request expedited ambulance response as well as notify via push notification any firefighters and volunteer firefighters in the nearby area. After receiving contact, these firefighters will be able to see using the local map on their smart phones where the nearest AED is located as well as the shortest route to offer aid to the victim.

At first the service was being offered for consumer use, but after conducting a proof of concept at Kyoto University, the platform has now pivoted toward use by emergency response services. They have received recognition by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as a social business model verified project. This fall, upon concluding a union with Aichi Prefecture and Owariasahi City, and Kyoto University, Coaido plans to begin a test implementation in Owariasahi City.

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‘Microsoft Japan’ Award winner: VISTouch by Masasuke Yasumoto

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VISTouch is a piece of technology making it possible to view 3D cross-section images with an iPad by placing the device on an iPad with a conductor case installed. This has a variety of applications such as viewing directional motion using StreetView on Google Maps, reproducing 3D images on a level plane, as well as displaying CT scan slices of the human body in 3D.

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‘Truffle Capital’ Award winner: Chef’s Hippocampus by Yui Kita

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Details regarding Chef’s Hippocampus can be found in an above section of this article.

Audience Award winner: First Responder System “AED FR” by Makoto Gensho, Coaido

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Details regarding Coaido can be found in an above section of this article.

Audience Award winner: HAND IN HAND by Tomoyuki Hisada, Wearable Device Research Institute

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Many of us are lucky enough to be able to use and benefit from the internet and smartphones, but this leaves out many disabled people who aren’t able to experience the same benefits. Today, visually impaired and hearing impaired people are able to obtain information using their remaining senses respectively, but until now there has never been any development towards interfaces for those who are both deaf and blind.

Tomoyuki Hisada won last year’s Mashup Awards with a wearable device for visually impaired people called “Mimimiru”. Using that as momentum he went into inventing a communication device for people who are both deaf and blind called HAND IN HAND. This device, attached to the user’s body, uses finger Braille technology to capture and translate into text the movements of the fingers, as well as translate into finger Braille the text input of an non-handicapped person via smartphone to be able to communicate with the handicapped user.

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Audience Award winner: Filme by Shingo Kadomatsu, Kotokoto

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Filme is a service that mothers can use to create videos that capture the growth of their children over time. With this unique video editing engine developed by Kotokoto, one film can be created by saving up short 30-second video clips taken every day for 20 days. The completed film can then be burned onto a DVD.

User feedback yielded high results in a customer satisfaction rating of 4, with 5 being the highest score. Additionally, it was found that 52% of customers would have their completed videos burned to disk, and that monetization of the platform is progressing smoothly. As for differentiating factors from other companies, they plan to move toward specializing their platform for childhood development videos, and completely revamp the service around mid September.


Furthermore, the second batch of Tech Lab Paak has now moved in, and as of August 30th, the third batch has begun accepting applications. Regardless of whether your project is corporate or private, send in your applications soon to be a part of this great incubation series.

Translated by Connor Kirk
Edited by Masaru Ikeda