A night that brings the brightest young Japanese startups over to San Francisco
Interested in the latest web tech innovations coming from Japan?
It’s already the 5th time that btrax, an SF-based creative agency specializing in cross-cultural consulting, branding and marketing, is organizing the Night. The program consists of three parts. First, all competitors have gone through a selection process, which culminates with a semi-final taking place in Tokyo. The winners of the semi-finals are allowed to present at the finals in San Francisco. The last SF Japan Night was very successful with over 250 people attending the event and over 1000 online viewers watching the event streamed live.
Come see the talent of Japan’s emerging startups show the global stage their latest web innovations.
2013 Finalists
The 6 presentors@ this edition
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WHILL
WHILL Inc. WHILL is next generation personal mobility that transforms the design and performance of existing mobility scooters and wheelchairs. WHILL can adapt to a wide range of mobility needs: from general adults to those with mild disabilities. You can use it standing or sitting down. WHILL Type A will expand your life horizon. |
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UI Scope
InnoBeta Inc. UIscope is a remote usability testing service for mobile apps and websites. Developers can easily see how users interact with their service. We provide a special webcam for our panels to take video of how they behave with apps or websites. We also have a method to analyze these videos using our panels and build a unique database of mobile usability. What we are trying to do is collect many practices and analyze them to find out the best way to build the service, which so far, only human knowhow has been capable of. |
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Share Wis
ShareWis Inc. ShareWis turns Learning into an Adventure. Learning is a life-long journey. Yes, that’s true. However, unfortunately, many people lose their way during the journey because there is no visible progress in learning. ShareWis visualizes even the smallest effort to learn something on a Knowledge Map, a network of short lectures using YouTube video and some brief quizzes. The lectures on the Knowledge Map are connected with each other. Since the color of the lecture changes after you complete it, you can visualize your learning steps on the map. Let’s go on a learning journey with ShareWis! |
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grafic
Dentsu Inc. grafic is an easily designable blog that stimulates your creativity. From a stylish cafe found on the streets to your favorite fashion, even memories of your trip with your love. With the feelings of a designer, you can freely express your thoughts and thrills that cannot be shown just with tweets or photos. The operations are sensuous and simple. You can trim, expand, and shrink photos as well as move stamps with the touch of a finger. Make everyday moments a masterpiece of your lifetime. grafic will assure a new sensation. |
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designclue
PurpleCow Inc. “designclue” is a Japanese, design-specified and “Multi Language oriented” crowdsourcing platform. Through which you can post your contest by using only YOUR own language, and the contractors from all over the world will read it in HIS/HER language and join in. The “Non-Verbal oriented UI is the core competence of our service. The philosophy of “Talk in Design” makes us enable to connect so much variety of countries, so that clients will benefit from the diversity of the worlds 7 billion population. Since September 2012, the site has started its Closed Beta and acquired top-level designers from 52 countries./div> |
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Comobaco
Comobaco Inc. Comobaco allows you and your friends to create a pool of shared items both on the web and in real life. With this service, you are able to share the things you own with anyone who joins your sharing pool. You can also pitch in together with your friends to buy new items. Comobaco provides users with a brand new way to buy and to own. |
Judges
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Shirley LinShirley is the Executive Managing Director of 800 Birds – a different kind of startup accelerator that propels entrepreneurs into building the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). She is the “Chief Squawker” for the 800 Birds startup community with over 1200 global members holding monthly events in Silicon Valley. 800 Birds has recently established a chapter in Shanghai, China, focusing on mobile gaming. Previously Shirley was the Executive Vice President of Asia Business Development and Operations at the VC funded Beintoo (www.beintoo.com), a mobile gamification platform that powers the reward and user loyalty programs to open up multi-channel revenue streams for mobile games and applications. She was responsible primarily for the Asia region in building partnership and operations. |
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Ahmed SiddiquiAhmed is the Director of Events for SignalFire, where he helps College Computer Science Students find jobs at emerging startups. Prior to this he was the Bay Area Leader for Startup Weekend, and advises many companies through that. He also started an educational app company called Go Go Mongo. Prior to working in the startup scene, Ahmed implemented Big Data solutions for Fortune 500 companies while at IBM Global Business Services. While at IBM, Ahmed got an opportunity to work in Tokyo for 6 months, which is where he fell in love with Anime, Gunpla, and Okonomiyaki. |
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Edith YeungEdith is a founding partner at RightVentures focusing on mobile and consumer internet companies. She is the head of Marketing for Dolphin Browser, a Sequioa-backed mobile browser with over 10 million downloads on Android and iOS. |
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Ray GrieselhuberRay Grieselhuber is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ginzamarkets, Inc., producer of the Ginzametrics SEO Platform. He has over 7 years of experience in organic search (SEO), social and paid search marketing, helping both Fortune 500 companies and startups alike drive growth, increase revenue and expand to global markets. He has spoken at various conferences around the world, including LeadsCon, Media Finance Summit, Y Combinator’s Ad Innovation Conference, Infinity Venture Summit, Open Network Lab’s DATA Conference and Sunbridge’s Innovation Weekend Conference. He has appeared on NHK TV to speak about startup trends in Silicon Valley and speaks fluent Japanese. |
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Igor ShoifotIgor is an investor with TMT Investments and chairman of HappyFarm.com.ua incubator, he’s also a founder of numerous startups, including large ones like Fotki.com and Microsoft WebTV Epsylon Games and has taught viral marketing, startup development and other such subjects at Berkeley, NYU, UCSF for a decade. He’s a shareholder in over 30 active startups and a co-founder of such new ventures as LolJam.com. He also played a spaceship captain in a Japanese film Almaz Black Box. More about Igor @ www.Shoifot.com |
Platinum Partners
Gold Partners
Silver Partners
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Catering Sponsors
Media Sponsors
The Organizer
Contact Information
Tel:415-344-0907
Fax:415-344-0957
Email:japannight@btrax.com
About btrax, Inc.
Business Name: btrax, Inc.
CEO: Brandon K. Hill
Location: 665 Third Street, Suite 505, San Francisco, California 94107
URL:www.btrax.com
What We Do:
btrax is located in San Francisco and provides Web site design, Marketing, Research and Branding service for clients who needs entry to Japanese, Chinese and US markets.
[...] week Waygo was invited by btrax to attend their SF Japan Night, where six Japanese companies came to San Francisco to pitch their ideas to spread awareness and [...]