Year: 2008

日本語版

Thanks to all who came down for our our event last night – always great to see you! We’re right back on the campaign trail here with notice that Dec. 8th will be our last gathering in 2008, so be sure to register asap and save the date in your hyper-busy Bonenkai Season calendar.. 😎

Note: we’ll be back at the KDDI Designing Studio, with a focus theme on Advance Search Tools. It’s set to be an interesting evening, maybe Santa will be taking requests during the networking segment at Wired Cafe!

Special Guest Presentations

Yoon Kim – CEO – Novauris Technologies Ltd.
Yoon has been involved in the academic and commercial development of speech technology and multimodal interfaces for the past 15 years, and has published several papers, patents, and international standards-related documents on advanced speech technology for mobile applications. Prior to joining Novauris, a UK-based company that develops core technologies for mobile voice search, he co-founded NeoSpeech Inc., a speech technology startup in the Silicon Valley. He was with the Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory at SRI International, and Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. Yoon has also served as a member of the ETSI STQ Aurora DSR Standards Workgroup. He currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Speech Technology Magazine. Yoon holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Ryosuke Esaki – Assistant Director – CyberMap Japan Corp.
Ryosuke Esaki started his career at CyberMap Japan Corp., known for their map service, as a new graduate. After joining the mobile marketing division, he currently engages in the Business Development Division, and has also become a member of the lunch Ke-tai Kunitori Kassen, which received a mobile project award at Wireless Japan in 2008. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business and a Master’s Degree in Geographic Information System at the University at Buffalo in New York, U.S.A.

Tadayasu Sasada – Producer & Director – CyberMap Japan Corp.
Tadayasu Sasada has been a major player in projects related to the launching of web sites for PC and mobile. Also, he launched a laboratory site for Mapion at CyberMap Japan Corp, currently one of the most popular Japanese mapping services. His creed is “make a product first, and then express images”. Due to the impressive and exciting interface of the iPhone and iPod touch, he started developing apps for the public’s use with these devices. “DGRadar” is his product; a radar app for location-based contents launched in October, which recorded the top among rated free apps in AppStore.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 8 December 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:00
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio — GMAP
Admission: 1,000jpy with Advance Registration – OR – 2,000jpy at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the first 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

日本語版

Our iphone Extravaganza, with all those scary monsters on-hand playing trick or treat, was a real blast! Thanks to everyone who made it out and we certainly look forward to see you again on Nov. 10th for our next event with Fractilist and eMobile stepping up to the stage.

Meanwhile, a couple of quick announcements: first, we have an open call out to all local developers for pitch to make our new MoMo Tokyo mobile website. Get the Overview Here and we’ll let the community vote on the winning proposal. Also, we have tweeked the registration form to capture a bit more data in an effort to streamline sign-up and check-in at the door in the future. Finally, for those of you on LinkedIn, we have started new group MoMo Tokyo so be sure to sign-up there!

Special Guest Presentations

Yusuke Tanaka – Founder & Director – Fractalist inc. .PDF
Yusuke Tanaka is one of the leading pioneers among Japanese mobile internet entrepreneurs. He established Dennotai in 1996 and collaborated with Unwired Planet (now OPENWAVE inc) to support and promote mobile internet services during the emerging market in Japan. Tanaka-san established Fractalist inc. in 2000 after Dennotai was acquired by Yahoo Japan. Fractalist inc went to public in 2006 and is now one of the major mobile marketing & solution providers in Japan. In a global perspective, he focused on China market and launched Fractalist China inc. in 2003 with Chinese colleagues. Fractalist China is now a partner of China Mobile in the mobile marketing area. His vision of Fractalist is to transfer successful Japanese mobile business models into global markets.

Ichiro Kato – Mgr, Product Planning Corp. Strategy – EMOBILE .PDF
Ichiro Kato started his career at eAccess, ADSL service provider founded in 1999, as first new graduate employee. After he worked on Customer Service, Sales Planning of ADSL and Marketing of AOL(acquired by eAccess in 2004), he was appointed as Executive Assistant to Dr. Sachio Semmoto, Founder & Chairman of eAccess and EMOBILE. He is currently responsible for product planning and marketing for mobile terminals. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Commercial Science from Keio University. EMOBILE was awarded a 3G spectrum license in the 1.7GHz band in November 2005. EMOBILE launched data service in March 2007 and started voice service in March 2008.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 10 November 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:30
Venue: Sam and Dave in Akasaka — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the first 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

日本語版

Thanks to all who made it out for our 4th birthday event at the Canadian embassy, we look forward to see you at Sam and Dave – October 20th for the iPhone Extravaganza. It should be a very interesting evening, see details & registration below, be sure to mark your calendar thingy!

Special Guest Presentations

Yasushi Nakamura – VP Business Dev. APAC – Ideaworks3D Ltd.
Yasushi has been involved in game technologies development and licensing for the past 9 years. Prior to joining Ideaworks3D in December 2007, He pioneered games middleware business in Japan for Criterion Software in 1999, which was later acquired by Electronic Arts. He then continued to manage collaborative next-gen game technology development projects within EA, working with the studios worldwide. With Ideaworks3D’s “Airplay” – multi-platform native (C/C++) application development environment and deployment technology, he aims to solve “platform fragmentation” problem, which currently plagues the mobile industry, and build healthy eco-system for mobile application proposition, enabling customers worldwide deployment of mobile contents. He received MSc in Control Systems Engineering from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Ryo Shimizu – Representative Dir. – Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc.
Ryo Shimizu managed the technical development of operating systems for the next-generation Microsoft game console while he was at the University of Electro-Communications. He joined DWANGO Co., Ltd. at the end of 1998 and launched its mobile phone business in 1999. After he quit his job at DWANGO in 2002, he worked for DWANGO North America Inc. as Content Development Vice President and then founded Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc. in 2003. He was conferred by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan) with the title of Super Creator/Genius Programmer in 2005.

Makoto Kondo – iPhone Dev Team – Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc.
At present Kondo-san is in his third year at Keio University, Faculty of Science and Technology. He has practically developed games for "i appli" since high school. After entering University, he has worked with UEI as researcher. In the past, he had developed the technology demo such as SiteSneaker2007, UESurface and iPong.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 20 October 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:30
Venue: Sam and Dave in Akasaka — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the first 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

日本語版

A big thank-you to all who braved the heat to attend MoMo Aug. 25th, you’re real troopers one and all. Our next gathering is Sept. 22nd back at the Canadian embassy. Since all eyes are looking at the Americas for potential growth, we’ve gathered – from both sides of the equator – a couple of industry insiders to share their insights. As always it promises to be a fantastic evening in a swank venue and we are thrilled to mark our 4th anniversary of the MoMo Tokyo chapter debut.. expecting cake.. 😎

Special Guest Presentations

Diego Singer – Commercial Manager – Homenajear .PDF
Homenajear is an Argentinian B2B company specialized in content development and distribution for mobile networks. Singer is in charge of commercial strategies, deployment of international activities and strategic partnerships. His previous experience comprises more than 10 years of entrepreneurial work in the technology and advertising industry. Prior to Homenajear Singer performed as the CEO in Looppa, a start-up web based social network. He studied philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. Homenajear has more than 5 years of experience in the Latin American mobile market. A recent development in the region is that important companies are willing to invest in mobile advertising. Homenajear has taken the lead with Bluetooth marketing proximity actions, as well as custom made Java developments for brands.

Handol Kim – Senior Director – Intrinsyc .PDF
Intrinsyc provides wireless software solutions that enable next-generation handheld products, including mobile handsets, smart phones, and converged devices. The company is a Microsoft Windows Embedded Gold Partner, and winner of Windows Embedded Excellence Awards in 2007 and 2008, a Symbian Competence Center and Symbian Platinum Partner. Handol Kim is Senior Director, Worldwide Strategic Account Development, where he has responsibility for strategic sales to tier-1 mobile device/handset OEMs. Prior to Intrinsyc, Handol led APAC + Japan business development at Redknee Inc, a leading software vendor selling to mobile network operators. Handol has also held executive sales, marketing, and business development roles at a number of networking, optoelectronics and high-performance computing companies in Silicon Valley and Canada. He started his career as a Trade Commissioner in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Update: Video from this event is now online – Enjoy!

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 22 September 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:00
Venue: Canadian Embassy — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration — OR — ¥2,000 at the door

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call

日本語版

Thanks to everyone who made it our for Nico Nico Night on the 14th and then the 4th annual NetTokyo fund-raiser last weekend, it was a great way to kick-off the summer! Our next MoMo Tokyo is August 25th and we have tapped a couple of savvy VC’s for a Money Meets the Talent evening. Details and Registration below – stay cool in the meantime.. 😎

Aki Ohashi – Partner – ngi group .PDF
Aki Ohashi, an American born Japanese, is a partner with the investment division ngi group, inc. The division specializes in early stage Internet and mobile phone investments, including mixi, Inc., the largest social network in Japan, (currently about US$1.5B on TSE Mothers Board). Prior to ngi capital, Aki was a director and COO for Tilefile, K.K. , a multimedia based social networking service in Japan. Before Tilefile, Aki was a consultant at L.E.K. Consulting (Japan) leading strategy engagements for multinational companies. His other experiences in the information technology industry include Mediaplex (US), an Internet advertising technology company (a ValueClick, Inc. company), and Cognizant Technology Solutions (US), an IT consultancy. Aki holds dual Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Texas and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Keisuke Ide – Senior Associate – Globis Capital Partners .PDF
Keisuke (Keis) Ide started his career as an engineer at KLA-Tencor Corporation in San Jose, California, working on semiconductor capital equipment. He moved onto strategy consulting, working at the McKenna Group in Palo Alto, California, where he focused on high-tech marketing. After moving to Tokyo in 2002, he worked for a Japanese fabless semiconductor startup company as an international business development director. His activities included business development, marketing, and sales.　He joined Globis Capital Partners, an independent, hands-on venture capital firm in 2007. His investement focus is products and services leveraging technology, that are scalable internationally. Keis received a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and an MS in Management Science and Engineering (MSE) from Stanford University.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 25 August 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:30
Venue: Sam and Dave in Akasaka — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the 1st 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

日本語版

We hope you all enjoy rainy season now because it’s gonna get hot-hot-hot real soon! So, with that in mind, your hard-working MoMo Tokyo team looks forward to chill’in with everyone at Sam and Dave’s on July 14th while taking in a couple of super-interesting presentations coming from the good folks at Xtone and Niwango. See ya there!

Fee: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door

Special Guest Presentations

Sadayuki Matsumoto – Chief Web Director – Xtone Ltd. .PDF
Sadayuki Matsumoto, co-founder of Xtone Ltd, is Director of Operations at Xtone. Xtone launched “trunc”, an Ajax driven web-based home page, in September 2007 as a first personalized homepage service specialized for Japanese web apps. The initial idea was to create a personalized page in how Japanese users could create and control all the services without visiting websites back and forth. From February 2008, Xtone launched “trunc mobile” in which people could access “trunc” by cell-phones (DoCoMo/au/SoftBank/WILLCOM). “trunc” and “trunc mobile” allow users to check their favorite gadgets from either PC or cell-phone. For more details, visit http://trunc.jp.

Tomohito Kinose – Director – Niwango, Inc. .PDF
Tomohito Kinose, also Director at Xtone, was in charge of the development of “Niwango”, a mobile web service where users can send questions and obtain information via email correspondence. By providing the service via mobile email, users can be more comitted and feel closer to Niwango, since mobile emails are closer to the daily life than web in Japan. Niwango offers other popular services such as novel games and blog feeds via mobile email.

He also takes part in planning & development of “Nico Nico Douga“, which is a video sharing community site with many communicative features. While there are many video sharing websites, Nico Nico Douga is known it’s original interface where users can comment on the on-going video realtime. This feature lets the users share the emotions and sympathise, and is highly evaluated. There is also a mobile version on Nico Nico Douga which provides unlimited video view, just like the PC version. He’s a chief management director for “Nico Nico Ichiba”, a user customizable affiliate program placed below the videos for Nico Nico Douga.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 14 July 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:30
Venue: Sam and Daves in Akasaka — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the 1st 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

日本語版

Thanks to everyone who attended our last event at Google on April 21st, a great evening was had by all. For those who may have missed it we have the presentation [.pdf] from Jaehong Lee, COO of Mikle Inc., uploaded Here.

Meanwhile, mark your calendar for our next event on June 23rd at the always fashionable KDDI Designing Studio in Harajuku with a Texting 2.0 theme. We’ve lined-up an interesting company to demo their touch screen input and translation software and are looking forward to hear from a senior Nuance representative regarding the future roadmap of their T9 predictive text entry product.

Special Guest Presentations

KOH Kyotetsu, Director, Software Dept., KODENSHA Co., Ltd. .PPT
Mr. KOH has been in charge of software development for Windows Mobile, including machine translation/dictionary software since 2002. KODENSHA’s product lineup includes “TransWalker j-Beijing V3”, a Chinese-Japanese translation software with Shogakukan’s dictionaries. It has gained a good reputation among business travelers to China. One of the notable features of the software is that users can input any text they want to be translated, which distinguished itself from other competing products. English-Japanese and Korean-Japanese versions of “TransWalker” were also released. KODENSHA then launched “DictionaryWalker English” and “DictionaryWalker Chinese”, putting more emphasis on dictionaries, coupled with entertaining antonym quiz. They even contain images which help users understand technical terms. These products, which run on Windows Mobile and implement standard functionalities of an electronic dictionary, allowed users to dispense with dedicated handheld dictionaries.

Brad Bargen, VP Product Dev., Nuance Communications .PDF
Brad Bargen is responsible for Nuance’s Text Input product development program. T9® Text Input brings faster text messaging and easier access to mobile services to nearly four billion handsets worldwide. His team is currently working to build on the global success of T9® with innovative solutions for mobile devices including XT9® Smart Input and T9 Nav™ Smart Search. Previous to Nuance, he worked at Tegic Communications Inc. (acquired by Nuance Communications Inc. in 2007), at Wildseed, Ltd, working to develop Wildseed’s innovative “SmartSkin” technology for mobile devices, and at Microsoft, where he authored the best selling book Inside DirectX.

Update: Video from this event is now online – Enjoy!

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 23 June 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:30
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration – OR – ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the 1st 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – First presentation
19:45 – Second presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking in the Wired Cafe
22:00 – Last Call
22:30 – Close

日本語版

Thank you all for coming out to our MoMo Tokyo 2008 Peer Awards event on March 24 at Shinsei Bank. We had a lot of very cool and innovative products presented! Congrats to the three winning companies and thanks to everyone involved for making it such a great evening. The video is now online Here.

Our next MoMo Tokyo event, April 21st, will focus on ‘Solving big problems on small devices – Google’s approach to the mobile internet evolution’. We’re looking forward to welcome our key mobile industry members for what promises to be an interesting presentation.

**Over Subscribed :: Registration is Now Closed**

Jaehong Lee — Chief Operating Officer — Mikle Inc. .PDF
Jaehong Lee is resposible for Mikle’s day-to-day operations, strategic planning, product management, marketing, international business development. Prior to joining Mikle, Jaehong worked at Yahoo! Japan. He product-managed Yahoo! Japan’s web search, image search and video search, and he led product strategy of Yahoo! Japan’s search product line. Before Yahoo! Japan, Jaehong was general manager of NeoWiz Japan Corporation, a subsidiary of NeoWiz Corporation which is a Korean leading online community and game company. There, he worked on product management, marketing, and strategy of online community product. Previously, Jaehong was product manager for Yahoo! Korea where he managed broadband content product and content partnership with major content holders.

John Lagerling, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google
John Lagerling is responsible for Google’s mobile business development activities in Japan. He has forged key partnerships with the major carriers in Japan, including NTT DoCoMo and KDDI as well as the major handset manufacturers. In parallel he is responsible for expanding the mobile ad-network in Japan, including partnerships Mobile SNS sites Mixi and GREE. Before joining Google, John spent five years working at NTT DoCoMo, initially as a manager for regional sales and marketing, and later as executive advisor focusing on business development around i-mode and the wallet phone business. He also has a background in consulting, driving projects related to Internet marketing and Mobile services.

Sponsored by:
Robert Leonard Consulting and Jonckers Translation & Engineering

Date: Monday, 21 April 2008 :: 18:30 – 22:00
Venue: Google Japan Inc. :: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Two Drink Fee to MoMo: ¥2,000

18:30 – Doors Open
19:00 – Welcome/introduction
19:15 – Presentation
20:15 – Q & A
20:30 – Networking
21:30 – Last Call
22:00 – Close

By all accounts the MoMo Tokyo 2008 Peer Awards held on Monday evening was a fantastic event and we would like to thank everyone involved for making it one of our best gatherings ever. Honorable mentions for two surprise guest speakers are also in order; Nina Norlund, former biz dev. mgr at HP Bazaar, who helped us get the MoMo Tokyo chapter rolling and Faraz Syed, CEO of Mobile Complete, a past winner at MobileMonday 2007 Global Peer Awards. Hearty congrats are in order for the winners (see below) and huge respect to all the candidate companies who stepped-up to participate. Here’s the event video – Enjoy!

We would like to pass along a very special thanks to our esteemed judges; Stephan Burke from Mobile Content Networks, Yurie Horita from Impress R&D, Hitomi Murakami from Seikei University, Masaaki Suga from Cybird Ventures and Martyn Williams from IDG News as well as Patrick Bray from GeoVector who served admirably as our MC for the night. We would also like to offer our most sincere gratitude to the great people at Shinsei Bank who provided an awesome venue, the folks at Infinita who built our groovy mobile voting site and finally, of course, everyone who attended. Whew.. Yoroshiku!

Congrats to these candidates now headed to the Global Peer Awards.

Academic: Students in an accredited University program

Mobile Krishna Winner!
http://www.mocolab.net
Raju Vijay Anand is a student at the International University of Japan, and a member of the Mobile Consumer Lab, who aims to provide security and information through mobile to tourists in India. It involves hypertags and the creation of a mobile eco-system that includes NGO’s and private security services. It is planning to provide a solution to protect the privacy and safety of tourists in India.

Start-ups: Recently founded with early-stage financing

StarGame’s Corporation Winner!
http://www.stargames.co.jp
StarGame’s is a Start-up company which will feature their service called as J2B translator. With this service, CPs can get a BREW application from a Java application full automatically.

Emerging: Operating between Series A & B funding
J-Magic Inc. Winner!
http://www.j-magic.co.jp
J-Magic is the mobile media company based on Image Sensing technology. Within 10 months, the company’s mobile service called “Kao-cheki!” was used by over 85million users. “Kao-cheki!” is an entertainment service that tells celebrities who looks similar to you. You can only take a photo with camera phone, send it to “Kao-cheki!” by e-mail(MMS) and get the result. Not only faces but logos, buildings, products and various objects can be recognized by J-Magic’s Image Sensing platform. J-Magic is now opening up new way of search!

Note; we’ll announce details for our April event soon – stay tuned.. 😎