Hackathon Keio Media Design style

　　　Friday we had a chance to experience something new in Japan. We decided to take part in a Hackathon. Term hackathon stands for an event, where people of different background (business people, programmers and designers) come  together for a day or a weekend and work on an innovative tech startup idea.This is a first event related to startups I am attending in Japan. And it was really interesting to see how Japanese culture fits startrups or coding culture. 

　　　The hackathon started on Friday evening at 6 p.m.. It was a bilingual event. There were a few foreigners attending, some of them didn't speak Japanese. While on the other hand not all Japanese participants spoke good English. The event started with introduction of the company ChatPerf (partner of the hackathon). Check out their website, pretty interesting product. http://chatperf.com/ It is a startup based in Tokyo. They have created a small device for iOS products that adds dimension of smell to user experience. The only drawback of it is that you have to manually input a cartridge with smell to the device. However possible applications of the idea are various. 

Images source http://blog.wishscope.com/特集ページ/2348/

      

       The goal of he weekend was to come up with an app for ChatPerf sent device. The main organizer of the event, ChatPerf representative was speaking most of the time in English. The first speaker he invited was presenting in Japanese, however he was talking about very interesting startup ideas. He has mentioned a company called Neurowear (http://neurowear.com/news/index.html). It is a Tokyo-based startup with a range of amazing products. Their core idea behind all of the products in to connect your brain waves to external devices for some purposes. I suggest you to have a look at those projects on their website, they are really impressive! Here are few videos. 

 

       After the speaker was done, we were supposed to start with networking. There were around 40-50 participants, our goal was to walk around the room and present our skills in order to build a team with others. Here Japanese specifics got involved. People stood up gathered in a big group but didn't know how to start and what to do... This lasted for a while. The the organizers remembered, that they forgot to announce the main topic of the hackathon: "Fun and Party game for Chatperf". Then we had to take initiative to our hands in order to form teams. Finally we were able to form 6 teams of 4-5 people with a coder, designer and business person in each team. 

      Than brainstorming session in each team started. Organizers have distributed Red Bull to everyone. Seems like Red Bull is not only associated with extreme sports, but also with Tech and startup events. The evening was over approximately at 10 p.m. and we were exited to start next day in approximately 12 hours. 

      Next day we had 6 hours to work on our idea, presentation, design and code. The presentations were scheduled for 4 p.m. By that time we were able to finalize our idea, product concept and our designers and programmer finished the app. 8 guests were invited to the event to judge. After the presentation, one winner were chosen. The winning team has done a great job and deserved the first prize. They received an offer from ChatPerf to continue working on their app and try to commercialize it later. Their idea was the following: an app for iPad used in restaurants and bars which have iPad (tablet) menus. Visitors are invited to play a game for a bonus. They are offered to guess a smell of a meal (multiple choice question). If they guess, they receive a discount on an item. 

      Our team JASS finished second. We were offering a smell guessing set with 12 smells and an app. Users guess smells while sitting around a table in a group. Whoever doesn`t guess correctly, has to do something (drink, for example). There are certain level of complexity, special "skunk" event and other surprises. We felt like that could become a nice present and an entertaining way to play in a big group (built around smell). 

    Overall it was great experience! Very fun weekend =) Here are a few illustrations of our idea and pictures from the event. 

Team JASS

Photo by Joerg Weisshaar

Hackathon participants

Photo by Koti Tsubouchi

Keio Media Design

TRAINING ROOM

     As I have already mentioned, many Japanese people are small. But they are very ambitious and hard-working. In our training room some Japanese guys know how to workout, but most of them seem to be newbies in this thing. But they are ambitious as I said. They sometimes start out with weights they barely lift, and after a few repeats and trapped under a heavy bar. But none of the other gym participants is hurrying to help... In gyms in Europe when someone takes a big weight, he asks others to set him up and help. Not always, of course, but it happens. Yet haven't seen it in Japan... 

Entrance to the gym

KANJI CLASS

     Today I have attended kanji writing class. It is a class for Kanji beginners (other classes clash with my main courses, so I have to take this one). If I were a new by and had never studied kanji before, I wouldn't be able to catch up. The teacher just writes a kanji with stroke order on a blackboard, pronounces its readings and goes on. Sometimes she says the meaning of the word in English, sometimes not... For me such a speed was perfect, but I was really wondering how real beginners felt...

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDIA DESIGN

     Finally (after the school is already going on) an orientation for the use of campus facilities was planned for today. We were given a small tour around campus (which we already knew pretty well) and then were greeted by the dean of the KMD. 

     The KMD building itself is very modern and new, I have already mentioned that before. There are millions of yen invested in the equipment and the building itself. The dean explained, that it was a state of the art building, with air conditioning triggered by ice cubes (not really familiar with that technology). It was also earthquake free.

     The presentation had a welcome format, but some things were new and important knowledge. This semester we were involved in a business project, working closely with real companies in real projects. In Japan the company culture is very different from Europe.

     Here are few tips we received today: 

- in summer Japan gets really hot and humid, this it is almost impossible to work in wearing a suit all the time. That is why some Japanese companies (but no all) allow employees to switch to "cool biz" dress code, something similar to business casual, without suits and ties, with light colors and short sleeves. 

- There are certain siting priorities. In a taxi cab the most important guy sits behind the driver, least important is next to the driver. In a room the most important person will sit farthest away from the door, the least important will be the closest to the door. Elevator: most important person stands behind the guy who presses buttons, the least important is in front of the door with buttons. 

     After the presentation, a lecture on storytelling was given to us. I like the formats of the lectures at KMD, as they have more of a workshop-style approach, which I find more effective and more fun. 

Uni and more

DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY

     Design ethnography as an elective for a business master? This sounds strange, but in the end it isn't. It is and will be a great class expanding the scope of thinking and seeing the world. 

     The first class was full of exercises and was a workshop-style. We have done an exercise with a sound ball, with music and sounds. Then we were split up in small group and had to do an exploration exercise (one of us had to be a human and had to explain, what banana or shoe lace was. The others were aliens, they had to listen and ask question, as they were not familiar with those objects). The discoveries were quite impressive and takeaways were also important. 

TRUCK FOR TRASH

     At a certain time on a certain date  people take out their separated trash (usually in white transparent plastic bags) and put it in a special place for a recycling truck to collect. The great thing about this track: it is so tiny (as many streets in our area are tiny) and it plays music (apparently this is a function of all trash trucks). The music is not intended for the driver, but for those who are outside. This is a very Japanese music that reminds me of some ring tones on old phones.