Monthly Ludens Report, Oct 2018
October, there are many different tasks to work on…we don’t have any time to stop…! Through this month, we spent time expanding our popularity to the world.
We started the month with giving a talk about our project at the prestigious Stanford University. It was a very valuable experience. Let’s catch up on what else we have done in Oct. 2018.
10/11 Giving a lecture at Stanford University
One of the month’s highlights happened far away from Tokyo. A long flight took us to a great meeting with people at Stanford University.
On 11th of October, we gave a lecture at the university on our “Virtual Human Agent(VHA)” project, which uses “Ludens”, the AI×Blockchain technology. Couger's Ishii, the CEO, and Ishiguro, Chief Blockchain Architect, were happy to present their work, achievements, and outlook on the future at such a historical institution.
We also introduced our current project, “GeneFlow”, which makes AI’s behavior history transparent. Dr. Richard B. Dasher from Stanford’s US-Asia Technology Management Center, had invited us to give the talk because of his interest in our vision for the “Smart Space” of the near future.
During the latter part of the event, our two presenters and Dr. Richard had a QA session with Stanford students who asked a lot of questions. Thanks to all staff and audience members at the university for this event, and we hope we will see you soon!
10/12 Meeting ODG, the leading tech company
Osterhout Design Group, a tech company in San Francisco, creates a super-cool product called “smart glasses.” We share a common vision of the “smart city,” so on the 12th of October we had a super discussion about how we are going to make it real.
10/12 Blockchain EXE in San Francisco for the second time!
Sunny weather and lively people in the place where many cutting-edge technologies are gathered… We were so happy to host Blockchain EXE in San Francisco for the second time on the 12th of October! This time the venue was offered by ConsenSys, and we made this a collaboration event titled “Blockchain and Smart Cities.” The presenters were: Kazuaki Ishiguro and Atsushi Ishii from Couger, as well as Carol Xu, Brett Li, and Alessandro Voto from ConsenSys.
Both presenters from Couger and from ConsenSys emphasized how blockchain is going to be important in creating the smart city.
10/24 Post Workshop Followup
On October 24th, we had distinguished guests from the World Bank, University of Rwanda, Gaston Berger University in Senegal, and University of Nairobi in Kenya to discuss the potentials of blockchain in Africa.
We are humbled that after co-hosting the five-day blockchain workshop in Rwanda with the support of the World Bank, some of the participants have started a local blockchain community as their own initiative. Even the Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Information Society Authority has been participating in this local WhatsApp group, a channel of communication for the grassroot community.
We also discussed how the technology can be adopted in African countries including Rwanda, and how Blockchain EXE can contribute to the community development further, in a truly decentralized and bottom-up manner.
We will continue to collaborate with these stakeholders to grow blockchain communities in Rwanda and other African countries.
10/25 Ludens Meetup #3 was about “GAN”
Our regular Ludens Meetup, has already been held three times. On the 25th of October, we discussed “GAN”(Generative Adversarial Network) technology.
The presenters and experts were: Mustafa Yagmur (Weathernews INC. and University of Tokyo), Dimitris Katsios (LPixel Inc.), Dr. Priya Kansal (AI Researcher, Couger.Inc).
All have great insights relating to GAN, and gave presentations on the fundamentals of the technology, its social implementation, and some of its cool applications. In addition, it was a chance to show our new demo video of Rachel, the Virtual Human Agent, using the wall as a screen!
The participants seemed very interested in the skillful agent. You can also check this out by clicking the link! (You can set the subtitles to either Japanese or English.)
10/26 Featured in a web TV show
One day, a letter arrived at the office. It said, “Do you want to appear on a web TV show?” We answered “Yes” without a second thought. The name of the TV show is “Nikkei Tech Live X,” which is a web TV program produced by Paravi.
This program focuses on rapid-growth startups and the latest innovation trends. On behalf of our team, Atsushi Ishii, CEO of Couger, showed up to the recording studio to make some comments.
The show has already aired but you can still watch it on the link below!
10/26 Token Engineering global Workshop in Berlin
To serve as representative of Token Engineering Tokyo, Couger’s leading blockchain engineer Ishiguro was invited to the Token Engineering workshop in Berlin on the 26th of October. This global gathering event was held by Ocean Protocol, one of the leading tech companies in Berlin.
People taking part were from a wide range of companies, including: ConsenSys, BigchainDB, Interlinked Protocol, and Sweetbridge.
Interesting presentations were made by representatives of the companies mentioned above and their talks illustrated how the world is going to be changed by their technologies. How exciting!
Our new design “Katakana” Ludens T-shirt is available!
This is one of the Japanese writing scripts that is called “Katakana.”
We made our new T-shirt design for fun, and as you know, you could get them when you come to our regular meet-ups!
Gray and white, two color variations are available for now. We are planning to add more colors, so don’t miss them get and your favorite!
