NEWS
Japan Institute of IT Executives Visit Rakuten France
In October, Japan Institute of IT (JiIT) held an executive mission tour to Europe, visiting a series of companies and institutions in order to learn about the current state and trends of of AI, robotics and autonomous driving. One step on the tour was Rakuten France, and Rakuten Institute of Technology’s Paris office participated in the visit by holding presentations.
The opening remarks were held by Will Archer Arentz, Vice General Manager of Rakuten Institute of Technology. That was followed by a presentation by Toshio Shimada, board member of JiIT, explaining the current state of the Japanese IT industry and the future prospects they see.
After that was a presentation by Mitsuru Nakazawa and Nam Chae, two or our Tokyo based researchers, together with Laurent Ach, Senior Manager of our Paris office. The topic was wide, to cover the many different areas of research we perform, but the focus was on our latest developments in computer vision, online-to-offline, cross reality, and AI innovations.
Next on the stage was Cédric Dufour, COO of Rakuten France, to introduce the history of Rakuten France, how it developed from PriceMinister into its current shape, and the challenges of fully utilizing the Rakuten ecosystem. Four startup companies from Paris – Wandercraft, Deepomatic, Stanley Robotics, and Immersive Robotics – finished the series of presentations by introducing their businesses and how they work with the latest technologies in computer vision and robotics.
For us, it was a great opportunity to present some of our latest innovations, learn about the state of the industry from the perspective of an organization like JiIT, as well as hearing what the startup companies are doing, and what we can learn from all of them.
If you want to know more about JiIT or the participating startup companies, see the links below.
