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* Nagoya University, Toyohashi University of Technology, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gifu University, and Mie University.

Tongali business plan contest 2021

“Grand Prize” - Caffet

Ryusuke Yabuuchi

Connecting local cafes with students

Because of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, students have created fewer connections with each other on university campuses. Yabuuchi himself struggled with this situation - Since transferring from Ube KOSEN (National Institute of Technology) to Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT) last year, he could join neither live classes nor any club activities.

"While I was wondering what I could do to create opportunities for students to interact face-to-face, I discovered that Aichi not only had a well established cafe culture but that these same cafes were also struggling with a fall in the number of customers due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the aging population. That’s when I came up with the idea of connecting local cafes and students seeking to socialize" Yabuuchi said, explaining how it all began. In November last year, Yabuuchi attended Startup Weekend Toyohashi, a startup workshop event held at TUT for the first time. This event led him to decide to make his ideas a reality.

Yabuuchi’s team's business plan is to provide a service via a smartphone app called Caffet. The app allows members to announce and organise social events at member cafes and coffee shops for people with similar interests and goals, and to order drinks and other items at a discount using a common cashless ticket. "It’s a great way to introduce people to new cafes. I hope this app will help support the income of cafes by increasing the number of young customers, and at the same time contribute to the revitalization of local communities.

This service is already available

This service is already in business. Thanks to crowdfunding and support from the industrial support organization Science Create in Toyohashi, the service was launched on June 17, 2021. （https://caffet-official.com）

"Rather than use our time weighing up the possibilities, we decided to just go for it. In the contest, I think we were evaluated not only on the content of our plan, but also on our ability to implement it”, said a smiling Yabuuchi. The team plans to use the one million yen Grand Prize activity support fund to promote the app with a view to nationwide expansion.

The Caffet team consists of seven fourth-year undergraduate students. Yabuuchi, Ikumi Fukitani, and Seiki Shibataka from the Department of Mechanical Engineering mainly manage the relationships with cafes and administrative tasks, and Yuushi Kontani, Sota Sonohara, Yusuke Mikami, and Tomoshi Iiyama from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering are in charge of app development.
"Caffet couldn’t have become a reality if it wasn’t for the efforts of the group as a whole. When I created a start-up venture club, it was with the feeling that if I could gather a group of similarly motivated friends, we could create a positive synergy."

Yabuuchi is interested in management as well as his university major. He states, "After graduation, I would like to start a business and create a company with the ethos that everyone can actively contribute by doing what they love." Winning the award is a promising first step realising this dream.

Tongali business plan contest 2021

“Aichi Prefecture Prize” - INHAND

Haruka Takahashi

Seeking to solve online challenges

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, online classes and seminars have become the new normal. While some appreciate the benefits of online learning, such as greater accessibility for people in remote areas, others find it harder to share content than in face-to-face classes. The latter case was true for Takehiro Izumi, who like Takashashi, was a fourth-year undergraduate student in Professor Shigeru Kuriyama's laboratory.

Takahashi explains how this situation led to them developing the INHAND presentation software, the core of their award winning business plan. "Izumi noticed that he was finding it hard to maintain concentration when faced with a series of slides without experiencing the energy of the speaker. With this in mind, he had already begun developing software to address this issue. When I heard from Professor Kuriyama about the contest, it felt like a great opportunity to see where we could take this idea."

INHAND displays both the speaker and the material on a single screen, and allows the user to zoom in and out, and page through, using hand gestures. It can also display objects in 3D on the screen and move them with hand gestures, or display the speaker's face as a virtual avatar. For a better idea of how the system works, see the video on the website (https://inhand.amebaownd.com/).

"This software is designed to work with a video of the presenter filmed from the knee up, which can easily be achieved by standing at a suitable distance from the built-in camera of a standard laptop computer. By adding this physical component, it is easier for the speaker to deliver content effectively by adding body language or changing the position of the speaker. We augmented this effect by enabling the speaker to control the program with remote hand movements"

Expectations also rise for their dispatch to SXSW

The development team is comprised of five students from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering-Takahashi is the team leader and in charge of virtual camera technology; Tsubasa Wakaiki, a second-year doctoral student who is in the same lab, develops 3D models and virtual avatars; Izumi focuses on hand gesture recognition technology; and Hikaru Sugawara and Sho Iwasawa, fourth-year undergraduate students in a different lab, are responsible for the user interface. The team is now learning how to develop the business potential of the idea through the Tongali project. Currently, they are working on specifications, and are planning to release a beta version of INHAND within the fiscal year.

"The software can be used for a variety of purposes, including education, as it can improve the quality of presentations by showing a combination of documents and actual objects," says Mr Takahashi.

The team will not simply rest on their laurels after winning the Aichi Prefecture Prize. In fact, they have been selected to compete in the Interactive category of South by Southwest's Innovation Awards. South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the world's largest technology startup events, is held every March in Texas, and is known as a gateway to success for technology startup businesses. "The chance of participating in SXSW was part of our original motivation for entering the Aichi contest, so it would be great if the whole team get to go to the event. We certainly expect to grow from the experience of how INHAND is received in the States, as well as what we can learn from other participants.” says a confident Takahashi.

In his studies, Takahashi has been pursuing the development of artificial intelligence to support human creative activities. "Developing INHAND has been a great experience for me, as I have been able to interact and converse with many people, which has also helped me in my AI development. The process of interviews that followed our victory made us realize afresh that there are some things that can only be learned by taking on challenges.