Entries Tagged as 'Community'

As The First In Its Kind, Digital-Focused Event To Be Held This Weekend In Fukuoka


As the first in its kind (for me at least), there will be a big three-day event in Fukuoka this weekend, which is called Myojo Waraku or just "MJ" in short, where a bunch of celebrities, geeks and techpreneurs from music, online video filming and start-up communities in the city come together.

For those who don't know much about the city, it's located in the south-western island of Japan and much closer to Shanghai and Seoul than Tokyo or the country's capital. That's why it's often considered as a gateway to Asian countries for Japanese, not only for its geographical reason, but also for a high reflection from Asian flavor in the city's local foods.

The city is a little bit away from Tokyo, however, it has a good enough population of techpreneurs and engineers because not a few large IT businesses have set up their headquarters there. So is it for the volume of its local tech start-up community, too.

The event is highly inspired by SXSW (South-by-South-West), a one-week-long festival that happens in March every year in Austin, TX and focuses on making great exposure opportunities for filmmakers, music artists and web media creators. MJ is led by Masanori Hashimoto, the co-founder of Fukuoka-based tech company NuLab, also known as the developer of collaboration-based drawing tool Cacoo, and Taizo Son[J], a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and a younger brother of Softbank Mobile's CEO, and aims at encouraging local start-ups to go more international and make their services spread out all across Asia.

Visit these webpages for a brief introduction about the event in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Also for more updates, visit the event's main website at http://myojowaraku.net[J]. (sorry, the latter one is mainly written in Japanese).

Tags: Community, Japan, Society by Masaru IKEDA
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Register For The Next Startup Weekend In Japan: November 18, Kyoto Research Park



Startup Weekend is in the process of establishing itself as a "brand" and regular event in Japan's web and startup world, and following Tokyo in August, it's now time hold a Startup Weekend in Kyoto.

The so-called Startup Weekend X Kyoto Research Park event (Facebook page) will take place:
November 18 (Friday), from 6.30pm - November 20 at 10pm
Kyoto Research Park
京都市下京区中堂寺粟田町93京都リサーチパーク4号館

As with all Startup Weekends around the world, the goal is to "build communities, companies and projects" over the course of a weekend.

The winning team of Startup Weekend Kyoto will fly to Singapore and join DEMO Asia 2012 to represent Kyoto (along with the winning team of Startup Weekend Tokyo).

You can register for the event in Kyoto on this site.

Tags: Community, Japan by Serkan Toto
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August’s Startup Weekend Events To Take Place In Tokyo, Kyoto And Fukuoka


In the next month, it will be the hottest summer ever which is filled with a number of start-up events.   Jonny Li, a Tokyo-based British start-up curator and also known as a partner for the Startup Weekend organization, announced he would hold its 54-hour weekend events in Tokyo, Kyoto and Fukuoka.  The events are to be operated by Mr. Li, Mr. Masanori Hashimoto of NuLab Inc.[J] who's well known for diagram-sharing web app Cacoo, and Kyoto Research Park.

Mr. Li expects sponsorship from several local tech companies in each of the cities, is currently working on it, and hopes to raise a 6 or 7-digit amount of cash (in Japanese yen) to the final prize winner.

Appointed judges who will watch and evaluate the pitches of participating developers include: Junya Kondo[J] from Hatena[J] (a Kyoto-based blog hosting company, see this for the company's related stories), Kentaro Sakakibara from Samurai Incubate and Mikihiro Yasuda[J] from Tokyo-based incubator Open Network Lab[J].  More great names are expected to be seated on the judging panel, so please keep your eyes on the website of the three-city events.

If you're interested in attending any of them and co-developing with great comrades, visit the website of the event in your city and complete your sign-up before all seats are sold out.

See Also:

 

Tags: Community, Japan by Masaru IKEDA
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Meet Japanese Start-ups on Fri and Sat in Singapore



Picture courtesy: Flickr user edwin.11 (used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

Singapore is very hot on tech throughout this week, since Echelon 2011, one of the largest tech conference in South East Asia, will be taking place at the National University of Singapore, where the region's best start-up companies and services will be chosen by well-known authorities. We will join it as a media attendee and bring you live coverage.

Following the event, on the Friday evening (June 17), a Singapore-based blog covering the Asian tech scene, Penn Olson will host a meet-up, and they give Japanese four tech start-ups a chance to pitch their innovative ideas to tech geeks, Internet celebrities and investors who will have come from all across Asia.  Applications for the meet-up have been already closed, but we're expecting to bring you a live streamcast or a live blogging from it.

Participating start-ups are:

  • Fashion Style Japan: Yoshio Narita, CEO & Founder of Qomune (See this for more)
  • Compath: Hiromichi Ando, CEO & Founder (w/ his colleagues)  (featured in this story)
  • Moso: Shinji Murakoshi, CEO & Founder of Moso (featured in this story)
  • Cacoo: Shinsuke Tabata, Managing Dir. & co-founder of NuLab, Inc. (See this for more)

Furthermore, on Saturday at 7pm (Singaporean time), at Hackspace.SG which is located at the heart of the country's Arabic district, we will have a casual meet-up with people of the hackerspace and the four start-ups mentioned above. I'm intended not to create an agenda nor time schedule.  But if you are interested in talking with these guys in person, please come and join us. (Plancast)   I'm looking forward to tasting great meals by Meng Weng Wong there, who is the hackerspace's director and also known for being very good at cooking.

See you all there.

See Also:

 

Tags: Announcement, Asiajin Event, Community, Japan, News, Singapore by Masaru IKEDA
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Who’s Free And Tonchidot To Hold Fundraising Party At SXSW To Help Relief Efforts


A cross-post to Asiajin and Startup Dating.

SXSW is currently taking place in Austin, Texas.   Asiajin contributors Serkan Toto and Paul Papadimitriou are there for moderating panels on Japanese web services and social media.  A team of the moderators, the presenters and the panels are now joining forces to help the disaster relief efforts in Japan.

We just got a press release from Who's Free (an LBS for smartphone to find your friends nearby) and Tonchidot (known for its augmented reality app called Sekai Camera), and it says, the two companies expect to have an event titled SXSW Save Japan Fundraising Night on 14th local time, which is the morning of 15th Japan Time.   It will be officially announced at Japanese Mobile Leaders Forum, a sectional meeting of this year's SXSW.

The two companies has already held parties to save the efforts, and nearly 20,000 US dollars have been fundraised on their donation website. (as of 4pm, March 14th, Japan Time)

As well as Tonchidot, attending Japanese key social media players such as GREE, Geisha Tokyo Entertainment and Mixi will join the event and appeal for awareness and international assistance.

It is coincident that the massive earthquake has attacked just during this year's edition of SXSW.   Serkan and Tonchidot teams were forced not to leave Narita Airport but to stay for a while, but they fortunately arrived in Austin.

It is very important to tell what's going on in our country to those who will visit the event and to appreciate their consideration.  Furthermore, we would like the Japanese teams to tell the world that we will never give up however much difficult the situation is.

@fumi is attending the event individually, we found she had summarized tweets related to the campaign on Chirpstory.

The press release is as follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT
JD,CEO: (415) 425-8621

jd@meebee.com

“WHO’S FREE” SXSW SAVE JAPAN FUNDRAISING NIGHT
Fundraiser to help save Japanese earthquake victims at SXSW
** Official Announcement at Japan Mobile Leaders Forum Monday 14th, 11am, Hilton **

MARCH 13, 2011 - Austin, TX - Who’s Free, the new social location app that “lets you see your friends who are nearby & FREE to hangout” along with Japanese mobile leader Tonchidot, creators of Domo, & a selection of Japanese Social Media leaders will be officially announcing a SXSW Save Japan Fundrasing night on Monday 14th with Who’s Free founder, JD, Japanese TV celebrity & veteran of Japan.

At the SXSW Japanese Mobile Leaders forum set for 11am, Monday 14th at the Hilton, Japanese mobile thought leaders including: Gree, Mixii & Tonchidot, will announce the location & time of the SXSW Save Japan Fundraising night on Monday. Who’s Free founder, JD, will be in attendance to possibly help with the announcement of the SXSW fundraiser, where the night will be dedicated to help save the victims of the Japan earthquake & tsunami.

More info on the Japanese Mobile leaders forum, where the announcement will be made: http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP8378 All funds raised at the SXSW Save Japan Fundraising night will be contributing to the American Red Cross relief efforts in Japan.

ABOUT WHO’S FREE
Just because you’ve checked in doesn’t mean you’re free to hangout! Launched by Australian startup MeeBee, a Techcrunch top 100 global startup & Red Herring Europe Winner, Who’s Free is the best, fastest way to meet up. Ready for SXSW attendees scattered amidst Austin, Who’s Free is bringing them together by bridging the gaps between online and physical, social worlds. No other app lets you know when your friends are free to hangout!

ABOUT JD
JD is founder and CEO (Creative Entrepreneurial Officer) of the NEW mobile app Who’s Free. An Aussie & Samurai at heart after 20+ years as a Japanese TV celebrity, he is a serial entrepreneur and Internet visionary having created numerous world firsts for the Internet and mobile market. JD is also author of 2 books, and has been an Internet pioneer since the mid 90′s. He’s climbed Mt. Fuji backwards in a Guinness World Record attempt. Always at the epicentre of where the Web meets Mobile & TV.

More: www.jd-profile.comRemember, before you go anywhere, see Who’s Free for …? WhosFreeApp.com

Tags: Community, News, USA by Masaru IKEDA
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