As with many Startup Weekends in Kyoto, the event will be held bilingually in English and Japanese.
Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, we are going to be holding this event online. For those who sign up by Friday November 20th 23:55, we will be sending original snacks and drinks from Kyoto (only for people in Japan, we cannot ship internationally). If you sign up after that, we won’t be able to send it.
If you cancel by Friday November 20th, we will be able to refund your participation fee minus handling fees.
Startup Weekend Kyoto, the 54 hours that will change your life, is back! And we’re going online!
There are no limits to what startups can accomplish, let’s rid ourselves of all the restrictions of a physical event and take advantage of all that we can accomplish online!
Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs create a startup in 54 hours. Throughout the weekend, you’ll learn how to turn ideas into something real and experience what it’s like to startup.
During Startup Weekend, you and your team will take your ideas from concept to creation within a matter of days!
(Since we are going online, we are going to be utilizing Zoom, Slack, Airmeet, and other online tools to carry out this event. Details will be messaged to all participants once decided.)
Starting from day 1, participants will pitch their ideas to form teams, then hit the ground running. Throughout the weekend, you'll be meeting talented and passionate coaches from whom you can get advice, and you'll be provided all the nourishment to keep going.
At the end of day 3, your team will be pitching your idea to a panel of judges who will provide feedback and select the winner!
But Startup Weekend isn't about winning, it's about working on ideas and taking the first step of your entrepreneurial journey. Startup Weekend isn't a Hackathon or a Workshop. There won't be nicely packaged instructions for you to follow, but you will connect with like minded aspiring entrepreneurs.
Many startups have been formed from Startup Weekends and many have found their co-founders to go beyond startup weekend.
See below for a more detailed schedule.
18:30 Registrations Begin
19:00 Dinner and Networking
19:30 Pitches Begin
20:30 Idea Voting and Team Formation
21:30 Start Working!
22:00 End of Day
9:00 Show up – Announcements!
10:30 Coaching Session
12:00 Lunch!
15:00 Approach users, find potential customers, work work work!
18:30 Dinner time and check-in
22:00 End of Day
9:00 Show up – Announcements!
10:30 Coaching Session
12:00 Lunch! and check-ins
15:00 Tech Check
17:00 Final Pitches
19:00 Judging and Award Ceremony
19:30 After Party!
Not at all. If you don't have an idea, you can join another idea and form a team to work on that one.
Each person will only have less than a minute so slides are a no-go. You can bring props if you want though.
Not necessarily. At the end of day 1, everyone will be voting for ideas and the top ideas will get to form teams. If your idea doesn't get enough votes, you won't be able to form a team around them.
No, but well researched and vetted ideas are always welcome.
As long as you are in Japan and sign up in time, we will send you a gift box with snacks and drinks from Kyoto!
All the organizers, facilitators, coaches, and judges are volunteers and not being paid a cent, so please be nice to them :).
To get the full experience, it's best to be available for the whole three days, but in the past, we have had participants who had to miss a couple hours because of prior engagements.
Of course. More the merrier. But please do register individually.
Philip is a social entrepreneur based in Osaka, Japan. He graduated from UCLA in 2011 and moved to Japan to study radiation safety at Kyoto University. In 2015, he joined the KOBE Startup Global Gateway Accelerator to develop Gochiso. In 2016, he graduated from his PhD program, established his company, and received the Umeda Start-up Fund. In 2018 he received the Osaka Social Problem Solving Fund. In 2020, he launched the Mamoru Sustainable Living App.
Reiko Kondo is the co-founder of Voice4u,Inc.. Along with the 2 co-founders from Silicon Valley, Reiko is developing communication support apps for autism and speaking disorder patients at Voice4u. She aims to develop new product to solve the medical problems for the aging society in Japan. Prior to joining Voice4u, she was the co-founder HATENA, followed by the public relations officer at Kokoro Research Center at Kyoto University.
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Isshu was born in 1982 and graduated from the Graduate School of Media and Governance of Keio University. By his motto of making a "human" program, he created a software called Kamicopi when he was a high school student. Since 2007, he has gone to the U.S.A. and established Nota Inc., and he creates apps and web pages. Now, Gyazo.com has the most users in the world by its screenshot sharing system. He was certified as Super Creator of IPA and its project in 2003.
Kenta majored in Ubiquitous Computing System at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. While studying, he founded an app company with his research laboratory mates. After graduating, Kenta joined the Kyoto University startup, DATAGRID Inc., where he is currently the manager for new business development.
Born in 1991, Sae Hyung attended highschool in Australia, after which he returned to his native South Korea to start a trade intermediary business. With the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, Sae Hyung decided to attend university in Japan. At the same time, he interned at an IT company and then founded a cross-border web services company in Osaka. In 2017, he sold his startup to a company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. From 2019, Sae Hyung has been consulting on AI, blockchain, RPA and other cutting edge IT technologies and in 2020, he founded Nimaru Technology to create game changing technologies. Recently, being stranded in Africa because of the Coronavirus pandemic, he started the development of Ovice.
Graduated from the Graduate School of Human and Environment Studies of Kyoto University. Yamamoto started working in the company Katharsis as a CEO. And opened the business [語り×BAR Katharsis] at May, 2019. Now with the motto “cultivating the possibilities of young people’s choice of unknown” he is working on a variety of businesses. He was also pointed as the department head of the Kyoto University International Entrepreneurship Department.
Kaz Oki is CEO of mui Lab, a Calm Technology startup company based in Kyoto. Born in 1979 in Tokyo, Japan, he graduated Sophia University in Tokyo. After his mission at company of Nissha USA Boston, he has established mui Lab and has done MBO(Management Buy Out) from Nissha Corp an enterprise corporation in 2019. As a startup company, mui Lab is trying to utilize/scale Calm Technology with approaching via philosophy of mui-shizen(a natural state of mind) and pursuing “harmony” between technology and human with nature for our real life of information technology and machine world. mui Lab and he have been awarded “best of Kickstarter” in 2019 for their 1st Kickstarter activity of mui (https://mui.jp )campaign to explore building community for future of homes. Also mui Lab has been awarded “Best of CES2020” and “CES Innovation Award 2019” for smart home category.
Originally from Finland, Antti Came to Japan in 2013 to start the Japan office of mobile game Angry Birds. From 2015 Antti built a major startup conference, Slush Tokyo, from scratch all the way to 6000 annual attendees. Since December 2018 has been an independent entrepreneur building software and occasionally assisting the international expansion of various companies in Japan and abroad.
Born in 1985, Suzuki graduated from Hitotsubashi University-Graduate School of Economics. From 2008, he worked in a boutique firm to provide support to the enterprise’s new business and M&A support as well as startup funding and support. In the year 2011, he was appointed as the director of WACUL company. And started working in the company giftee as a director. Since March 24th, 2020, he started working as the CEO of company giftee. In the same time, he also serves as an outside director in other 4 companies.
Sushi Suzuki is a specially appointed associate professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology and KYOTO Design Lab where he teaches and runs projects based around design thinking, the Stanford-IDEO innovation methodologies. Previously, he co-founded Paris Est d.school while teaching design innovation at École des Ponts ParisTech and was the Executive Director of the ME310 program at Stanford University. Sushi also set up an innovation team for Panasonic Europe, was one of the co-founding members of i-kimono.com, a Japanese start-up company that handles antique kimono and accessories online, and a concept developer for Yocondo, a Germany-based semantic product search engine.
Artist by nature, Engineer by training, and Designer by desire, Sushi is always thinking of new ways to do the old things better. Sushi holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.A. in Studio Arts from Rice University.
After graduating from Doshisha University, Takayuki moved to Tokyo and worked in sales at an advertising agency and at DeNA as a business developer. After 10 years in Tokyo, he returned to Kyoto. Takayuki participated in Startup Weekend Tokyo last year and has been an entrepreneur since April preparing his company. He operates a curation site "COMINCA TIMES" with its purpose of "bringing old traditional houses into the future" and serves as its chief editor.
ユニオンエタニティ株式会社CFO、Quiny株式会社CFO
大手都市銀行からコンサル会社、KRPでスタートアップ支援業務を経て50歳を過ぎてスタートアップにJOIN 2011年から京都でスタートアップウイークエンドのオーガナイザーを務める
Former university professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology.
Graduate GLOBIS Management School of Business 2012 (MBA), Background is Overseas sales, Join Startup, IT company After working as an enterprise marketer. Since 2008, Rikkyo University has been in charge of developing and teaching industry-academia cooperation programs (business leadership program) as a part-time instructor. In 2014 BLP Advanced received the Career Education Award from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Regional society collaboration, development of industry-university cooperation programs, leadership and entrepreneurship education are the core charge area.
Rio is a UI designer at DeNA.He participated in Startup Weekend Kyoto in August 2015 as a designer and joined the team "1mile."
Came to Kyoto from Wuhan, China back in 2016, Thomas finished his master course in Kyoto Institute of Technology and is currently working in a business prototyping studio as an UX designer. He participated in the Startup Weekend Kyoto 2017. To prevent people from wasting coins and help users develop a good habit of saving, his team came up with the Start-up idea “adventure piggy”.
Akira joined Seiki Corporation in 2013 and helps university students with their career development. From 2015, he is also the director of Japan Edu-Beit Association which promotes career education for students. He currently develops new businesses for Seiki and is also responsible for planning events and campaigns.
Belongs to Kyoto Research Park Co., Ltd. (KRP). Worked for about 5 years at a government-affiliated financial institution. Then he joined KRP. Support start-up, run incubation floor and event space hangouts.
Tomoya belongs to the Kyoto Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering course, fourth year.
He joined Startup Weekend Kyoto 2018 and won first prize with the idea of the elderly person's medication management assistance system "pitdell".
He is interested in community and group work while learning mechanical engineering..
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Soichiro is a senior in the Design,Management,and Engineer Department at Kyoto Institute of Technology. He has a presentation event of a thousand people. He joined Startup Weekend Kyoto Student in 2019 and proposed an innovative solution for the problem of Japanese career education as a leader.
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