QARA in Tokyo for Deloitte Tohmatsu Innovation Summit
Deloitte Tohmatsu Group celebrated its 50th year anniversary by hosting one of Asia’s largest innovation conferences, Deloitte Tohmatsu Innovation Summit, at the Tokyo International Forum on September 11th, 2018.
QARAsoft had been invited to participate in the exhibition, along with 300 domestic and international startups. Four members of our team, including our CEO, Luke ChangHwan Byun, and Global CEO, Katie Bomi Son, have attended the event.
Forum
Since Japan is a high priority market for our company, we wanted to make sure we utilize our time well at the exhibition — especially because unlike other exhibitions we’ve attended, this was only for one day.
Our team had gathered early in the morning to set up the booth. Throughout the day, we’ve interacted with several investors and key stakeholders from major financial corporations. We’ve also made important contacts with many accelerator programs as well as journalists who showed genuine interest in our company.
AI Speaker
For months, our team worked hard to implement AI Speaker as a new feature for KOSHO. Fortunately, we’ve been able to complete a beta version for the Innovation Summit and introduce this function to our Japanese business prospects.
While Japan was our first market destination to introduce this feature, we plan to continue upgrading and improving our AI Speaker so that we can show it to the rest of the global markets.
Power Matching
As part of the Innovation Summit schedule, Deloitte Tohmatsu Group hosted a Power Matching event. QARAsoft was allocated to the morning session and placed with three large Japanese corporations: ORIX, JBI, and Sparks. Each company shared a genuine interest in partnering with fintech companies specializing in robo-advisory and asset management. Our CEOs attended the event and shared the company’s vision and purpose as well as its plans for future growth.
Line
Our last schedule consisted of going to the Line headquarters and meeting with a Manager from Naver who also happens to be our co-working partner since last year. For about 30 minutes or so, we discussed QARAsoft’s future and how we can stay in-demand in a very competitive market. With topics ranging from Deep Learning technology to robo-advisory, we received useful insights on innovation and got multiple points of perspectives for growth strategies.
Takeaway
Although our time in Japan was short, we received several positive feedback that showed a glimpse of our potential in the Japanese market. That in and of itself makes this trip worth it. We will be back in Tokyo in two weeks to participate in Fin/Sum 2018 for their annual pitch contest. Among hundreds of startup applicants, our Global CEO Katie was selected to join the competition. We’ll provide you with more details as the event draws near. So please stay tuned!
Check out the video below to see more about the event!
