post

Monozukuri Hub: bringing it all together. Our meet ups have already started!

As pointed out in the Financial Times article by Leo Lewis, "Japan’s most cherished industrial skill — obsessive perfection of monozukuri or “thing-making” — has its origins in Kyoto."

In order to share this concept with our community, our First Meet Up took place at MTRL Kyoto  last week, May 11th. It was a delightful chance to bring all together: Senior Business man joined early stage startups to talk about ways to improve our quality of life.

Japan is known to be an island where most of the population tend to live longer, and technology can allow us to also live better.
 MBC-meetup1-4MBC-meetup1-45
KSN - Kyoto Shisaku Net, Kyoto Prototyping Network members attended the event representing a group of 100 manufacturers who provide Samurai Mentorship for startups.
This series of events take place in Kyoto, led by Makers Boot Camp, leading hardware accelerator 100% Made in Japan, and invites local community to join in with entrepreneurs working on the latest innovative projects.
MBC-meetup1-11
The diverse audience was composed by around 35 people, from students and makers to professors, mentors and investors, in a very unique display.
The speakers are selected by Makers Boot Camp team and startups had the chance to meet other makers and exchange ideas about new trends they are working on.
MBC-meetup1-7
Narimasa Makino, Makers Boot Camp CEO presented some points from the first year of his startup activity, results and lessons learnt, and also his vision for the future, with the new challenges in a promising growing market: hardware is hard and makers need more and more support to keep the track of their project to deliver a high quality product on time. Kyoto Shisaku Net members also attended the event, including not only the board but also the mentors who will lead the next bright minds geared towards mass manufacturing.
We had two examples of startup approaches for connected houses in a very innovative way to create, execute and interact.
Starting from Hacarus, a healthcare startup focused on leveraging the quality of life thru a balanced diet for the entire family, its product is a scale that connected to a smartphone app provides useful nutrition data. The scale sends all the information as an easy graph, showing the ratio of protein, fats, carbs as well as the nutrition facts. You can add unlimited family members and manage them together. The app can be used at home and for medical institutions.
MBC-meetup1-18
Hacarus scale is for sale now on Makuake!
The second speaker was Atmoph, with a smart window that shows how technology can help improving indoor life, from productivity at workspaces to a more cozy leisure time at home: a new digital device that opens to beautiful scenery from around the world. From people who suffer during longer winters to the ones who have a struggled to fall asleep, the device can be set in order to provide proper light, hour and time with customised alarm functions, weather forecast and calendar, as well as synchronised audio to match any desired landscape."Better time for a better day.”
MBC-meetup1-32
The special guest was Kyoto VR, a virtual reality early stage startup that provides an experience using Manus VR HTC virtual reality devices. As a IoT related startup trying to evangelize local people for the infinite possibilities of using technology in order to maximize and innovate the way people interact with the city, not only locals but also tourists, who come everyday to visit one of the most unique places in the world. The idea behind it is to promote, explore and preserve Kyoto as the ancient capital of Japan and one of world treasures. The attendees tried the VR applied to Tofu shrine, a small shinto place in a top of a mountain, and were very surprised by the realist interactive functionalities. The trial will take place at MTRL Kyoto until the 21st of May.
MBC-meetup1-52
Kyoto Design Lab, part of Kyoto Institute of Technology, and one of Makers Boot Camp main key partners, brought examples of its special projects converging innovation, design and architecture. An outstanding place for creativity and entrepreneurs to want to collaborate, share and build new things, the university has been partnering with a large amount of public and private institutions, in order to try new formats for the world’s benefit.
MBC-meetup1-65
ThundrBlade also gave some attendees a demo session about world's first electric powered motorized inline skate,
with its rechargeable batteries, it  can reach speeds up to 40km/h and 20km range while being as light as a normal inline skate.
MBC-meetup1-75
Meant to be a cool new sport, it's a completely different kind of fun from traditional inline skates. You can skate normally if you want or if the battery dies.
During the networking session, speakers and atendees could connect and start new conversations, the main purpose of our events.
MBC-meetup1-76 MBC-meetup1-78