[Photo Report] Slush Asia was the coolest startup event in Japan

On April 24, Slush Asia was held in Odaiba(large artificial island in Tokyo Bay), Japan, and 3000 audiences and presses were gathered.

Slush is a startup event held in Helsinki, Finland in every November, and Slush Asia is its Asian version according to the name. However, there was not "slush" there. Rather there were sunburns! :)

Tokyo have some large facilities for international events, but unfortunately these are very busy in spring. Therefore Slush Asia set up huge tents "White Rock" in the large parking and made places. There was totally like rock festival.

And the event itself was like the rock festival, too. Many startup events are held in Japan. However, they are sometimes nerdy and boredom. Uncool dark suit, cheesey PowerPoint templates, the most of speakers are men etc... Slush Asia is different from them. It shows that entrepreneurs are cool like a rock star and establishing a company is same as form a band.

English ability of Japanese people is terrible, but the official language of Slush Asia was completely English. Main speeches, guide map, Pitch contests, apps etc... Anyway, the everything were English! Surprisingly even the mayor of Fukuoka gave a speech in perfect English. He was the only politician speaker in Slush Asia.

Furthermore, we were able to watch the various interesting gadgets in a demo area. There was totally like Oreilly's Maker Fair.

Various food trucks are indispensable for a festival. Of course they were perfect, too, and every light meal including Japanese foods were prepared. Foreigner audiences surely enjoyed them.

The final conclusion is a after party. Speakers, audiences, presses and staff completely burnt it by blast DJ play and cool Installation art. This is one of the characteristics of Slush, too. The after party in the Japanese conference event is boring Buffet party. Exchange of business cards? Hell!

The greatest point of Slush Asia is that a preparation time was only three months. Within the period, Slush Asia became the Japanese general incorporated association, organized volunteers of 300 university students and gathered sponsors. Were core members able to sleep? According to Slush Asia CEO Antti Sonninen, they will hold Slush Asia next year. Please prepare for the trip to Japan from now.

More photos are here.

SenSprout make farming more efficient

Japanese startup SenSprout developed the seed leaf form gadget which could watch water included in the soil. Electronic circuits are printed with conductive ink to a root of this, and measures capacitance included in the soil. An LED light expressing a fluid volume is put on a leaf, and depending on the water level, its color changes to red, blue and green. Farmers can know the fluid volume of the soil by this numerical change.

A power supply necessary to use this is only one size AA battery. They supposes that use in private vegetable gardens and hothouse cultivation. They raised development funds in Crowdfunding site Indiegogo, and achieved the amount of aim in only one day.

The gadget which protects human dignity

Japanese startup Triple W Japan developed a wearable device "DFree" that predicts the timing of bowel movements, and accept pre-reservation in crowdfunding platform READYFOR?. DFree monitor internal movement with a ultrasonic wave sensor and foresees the timing of urination and the bowel movement. Furthermore, it links with mobile application in Bluetooth and notifies users of timings of the bowel movement beforehand.

There is individual difference in bowel movement timings, but the mobile application learns timings by recording the bowel movement time of users, and the accuracy of the notice improves so that users go to the rest room many times. It will help handicapped people and the elderly people and regain their dignity. In addition, it is usable for the education of the infant.

The VR application that can observe the showroom

Tech company Team Lab and real estate company Cosmos Initia developed the VR system "Haco-mansion VR" which could observe the showroom using GoogleCardboard and mobile application.

Users can observe the showroom in virtual space by setting the smartphone which installed VR application at VR goggles GoogleCardboard made of corrugated cardboard. The characteristics of the room are listed in the space, users can check the scenery to show from windows, and confirm the difference in scenery by the hierarchy when there is a room in the high-rise house. They had already applied this in sale of condominium apartment and distributed kits to 300 people who examine the purchase.

Supercell utilizes Japanese photoshop meme and hashtag campaign for advertising

Finland's Supercell performs various original promotion in Japan.

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Supercell carried out Japan's original promotion for New Year holidays

They started the original promotion for Japanese users more from this week. This is "#クラクラコラージュ選手権(Clash of Clans Collage Grand Prix)".

This is associated with the TV commercials that they broadcasted in Japan now. They contribute two kinds of collage material "略奪する女(The woman who plunders)" and "略奪される男(The man who is plundered)" in a campaign site, and raise collage works using them in Twitter.

Twitter users like making crappy collage works and tweet them, and Japanese people are particularly so. They even do the worst situation in photoshop meme and enjoy it as a joke. If you are familiar with social media, I should know "#ISISクソコラグランプリ(ISIS Crappy Collage Grand Prix)".

See also:
Japanese netizens personified ISIS as cute girls at last

They want to utilize the such characteristic of Japanese people for advertising. Goods of Clash of Clans are presented to 20 users who made cool works.

Doraemon cooperates with mixi's popular mobile game Monster Strike

Japanese national manga/anime Doraemon shows a movie every year, and cooperate with mobile app or game. The partner of their this year is mixi's popular mobile game Monster Strike. Now, Monster Strike Jp ver. is full of Doraemon.

A start screen and the loading screen are Doraemon...

And Doraemon and Nobita comes up in a game as playable characters. The charges are not necessary to get them. We can get Nobita by posting tie-up information to Twitter and Facebook. On the other hand, Doraemon appears on free gacha and limited stages.

They are very cute! but they transform themselves into a hero mode when we strengthen them.

Furthermore, mixi broadcasts new TV CM of Doraemon ver. with this tie-up.

Yo-Kai Watch strikes Hawaii before the US mainland landing

Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau cooperated with Japanese popular game/anime Yo-Kai Watch(妖怪ウォッチ) and appointed this to kids goodwill ambassador. A collaboration enforcement period is two years.

Yokai Watch is a series of role-playing games for Nintendo 3DS developed and published by Level-5. It is released from 2013, then TV anime was broadcasted, manga was published, and various goods were released and got explosive popularity. This is more popular than Pokemon now in Japan.

Hawaii cooperates with Yokai Watch and publicizes Hawaii to Japanese families and overseas travel beginner. Unfortunately the overseas travel number of Japanese people decreases year by year. Therefore Hawaii cooperates with Yokai Watch, and appeal to Japanese people that Hawaii is safe and convenient place. They have already opened a tie-up site. Furthermore, they will hold a stamp rally event, sell Hawaiian limited original goods, produce a Hawaiian original short story anime, and plan Yo-Kai Watch Hawaii tour.

This tie-up is very effective for Level-5. Because they start US expansion of Yo-Kai Watch in 2016 in earnest. Naturally Hawaiian will see this tie-up, and may be interested in it. This is promotion of Yo-Kai Watct  for Hawaiian, too.