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<img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image1_162e3ddbd3.jpg" alt="image1.jpg">Established in September 2023, aequol Inc. is a company that spun off of Moon Creative Lab venture Metajob!, a digital work matching service. It is developing a job matching platform for spot work and other services in an effort to provide equal work opportunities to all people. How did the idea come about?<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1600/900;" src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image2_9adb52cc44.jpg" alt="image2.jpg" width="1600" height="900"><figcaption>Naohiro Hoshino, CEO of aequol Inc. In 2021, he launched Metajob! as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Moon Creative Lab and then incorporated it as a company in September 2023.</figcaption></figure>Table of Contents<ol><li>Helping launch Moon Creative Lab</li><li>Is labor shortage real?</li><li>Digital work level the playing field</li><li>Experiences become the true value</li></ol>&nbsp;<h3>1.Helping launch Moon Creative Lab</h3>How did you become an in-house entrepreneur at Moon?&nbsp;Naohiro Hoshino: Around 2016, I participated in the project that originally created Moon Creative Lab itself. Mitsui had been creating a long-term, 10-year vision and Moon was the centerpiece of that vision. In the next phase, we decided to start creating something from scratch, and we set up the motto "From 'tsunagu' (connect) to 'tsukuru' (create)."Later in 2018, Moon was launched and during an open call for ideas, I proposed my idea of&nbsp; a job-matching platform specialized for digital work, which was "Metajob!”At first, I was thinking of developing a platform that would bundle such things as remote-controlled delivery robots and remote-controlled construction work that can be done without having to go to the construction site, for example, or even telemedicine as another example.However, many remote-controlled robot technologies have not yet been put to practical use, so I decided to start with remote customer service, which we could start working on immediately.&nbsp;<h3>2.Is labor shortage real?</h3>Why did “digital” become the starting point?&nbsp;Naohiro: When I explain Japan's demographic projections and effective job openings to people overseas, they get very surprised. Certainly, the shortage of workers is one of the biggest issues facing Japan. However, from a micro-perspective, we also realize that it is not a simple matter, like the ratio of job offers to applicants = 1 or more, therefore there is a labor shortage.Even if the total amount of work exceeds the total number of workers, various barriers such as age, places to live, illness, nursing care, educational background, work experience, etc. prevent people from taking the first step. To begin with, there are few people who are willing to take any kind of Job. In other words, I feel that a lack of manpower appears to be there, partly because of those barriers.aequal's vision is to "help corporate business through individual life experiences.” We are trying to create a new market for non-manual spot-work, where people support corporate activities based on their unique experiences.If everyone stands on the same footing and runs the same 100 meters based on their own character, I think the result would be an interesting world based on different values than what we have seen so far.<h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>3.Digital work level the playing field</h3>What made you feel challenged by work barriers?&nbsp;Naohiro: I was born and raised in “shitamachi” Tokyo [smaller, more familiar and traditional neighborhoods outside of the modern, cosmopolitan city, typically made of laborers, artisans, and merchants]. My parents were sole proprietors. Many of the families around me were like that. Because I grew up in such an environment, I thought it was natural that after graduating from high school, I would either find a job or go to college while earning tuition fees. At that time, I realized that there is a huge difference in the starting points for running those metaphorical 100 meters.I then began to wonder if it would be possible to create an environment in which all people could compete from the same starting point. The point is that I am not trying to develop "shoes that make you run faster.* My goal was to create a level playing field, and digital work was one of the approaches to achieve this.<h3>4.Experiences become the true value</h3>Isn't work dependent on past skills and background?&nbsp;Naohiro: When we tried to link digital workers with companies, we saw early on that securing social trust was an issue. However, there are actually ways of matching where the value is not in the skills or career, but in the individual’s experience itself.One example of this is the&nbsp;<a href="https://ijyu-chat.metajob.jp/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=Ijuuchat_LP">Ijuu Chat</a> immigration consultation service, released in October 2023 in collaboration with Japan Organization for Internal Migration (JOIN). In February 2024,&nbsp;<a href="https://numazu-ijyu-chat.metajob.jp/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=Ijuuchat_N_LP">Ijuuchat for Numazu</a> was launched through Numazu Livelihood, a portal site operated by Numazu City for immigrants and permanent residents. And in June 2024,&nbsp;<a href="https://ibaraki-ijyu-chat.metajob.jp/">Ijuuchat for Ibaraki</a> was launched for Ibaraki prefecture. We hope to make this available nationwide.&nbsp;Until now, local government officials in each area have tried to explain the convenience of living in that area, which is something that prospective immigrants want to know about. In Ijuu Chat, ChatGPT gives a rough answer, and then digital workers who have lived in the area answer the details beyond that. For example, if you ask, "What is the best area for a single mother to live?” a person with experience will answer that question.This is what makes it valuable – not the skill, but the experience. The fact that you have lived there becomes a value in itself. This system can be used not only for immigration but also for travel, and if a large log of exchanges can be accumulated, data utilization is also possible.The knowledge we have gained through our various practices is being applied in a wider range of areas as technology advances. The first remote customer service project we undertook was with a company that operates a karaoke box. By taking detailed sensory data from workers, we were able to get a variety of opinions, such as the difficulty of free talk and the demand for fortune-telling. We were able to start quizzes, including murder mysteries and quick-press quizzes, and collect a variety of data as a result.Now we are able to use that knowledge to conduct increasingly in-depth interviews, such as talking to people who have been using a cosmetics brand's products for more than 10 years, or one company talking to loyal users of a rival company.Although the public has high expectations for automation through AI and robots, the actual cost of 100% automation is significant, and the division of roles between AI and people is expected to continue to be an important point in the future. I believe that digital work will play a major role there.<hr>Naohiro Hoshino established&nbsp;<a href="https://aequol.com/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=aequol_LP">aequol Inc.</a> on September 14, 2023. In October 2023, he released&nbsp;<a href="https://ijyu-chat.metajob.jp/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=Ijuuchat_LP">Ijuu Chat</a>, a migration consultation service operated by both AI and people, in collaboration with the Organization for Promotion of Migration and Interchange. In January 2024, he collaborated with Chukyo Television Broadcasting Corporation and launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ctv.co.jp/studyjam/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=StudyJam_LP">Study Jam</a>, a non-advertising method to reach Generation Z and create fandoms. Naohiro has also launched Metajob Research, an online interview service that enables users to obtain candid opinions from consumers, and&nbsp;<a href="https://aequol.com/posts/SNOKlBuY?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=vtuberscoring">Super-Subjective Vtuber Scoring</a>, a karaoke scoring tool that uses Vtuber digital workers, which Moon Creative Lab is currently helping Naohiro implement.Moon Creative Lab also supports various other ventures. Please check our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=CTA&amp;utm_id=aequol_idea_interview_en">official website</a> to learn more.&nbsp;

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<a href="https://www.voox.me/">VOOX</a> is a platform that offers a curated collection of bite-sized audio content for lifelong learning. Content is narrated by the author in order to accurately convey and express what they intend. This can sometimes be quite difficult to achieve when read by someone other than the author themselves. Founder Hong Guihua shares why she decided to create VOOX and the impact her company is looking to create.<h3>In this blog:</h3><ul><li>“I like books but I’m unable to read them.”</li><li>Right plan, wrong content</li><li>Keeping authors authentic</li><li>Connecting authors, editors, and publishers</li><li>Bringing authors and readers together</li></ul><hr><figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image1_2b52554b2b.jpg" alt="image1.jpg"><figcaption>Hong Guihua launched VOOX in May 2020 and released the application in 2021. &nbsp;</figcaption></figure><h3>“I like books but I’m unable to read them.”</h3>I have always been interested in audio services for two main reasons:<ol><li>While I like books and think they are important, I found myself unable to read them. Especially difficult books; if it is a classic or a book with complex content, it is very difficult to read, let alone understand.</li><li>When I was stationed in Indonesia back in 2016, I had to drive to work for two years. I had spent a lot of time driving and audio content was a crucial means of consuming information for me. I had always used different forms of audio content, including radio, and I had a strong interest in audio services such as audiobooks, news delivered by voice, audio lectures on economics at Peking University, and so on. &nbsp;</li></ol>However, compared to the U.S. and China, Japan had hardly any audio content other than radio. The only thing that existed were podcasts for learning English. There were so few options!&nbsp; I thought that offering a variety of audio content in a different format would grow in Japan. When I had learned about Moon's open call for new business ideas, I started thinking about my idea and how I might commercialize it. I refined my idea, pitched it to Moon and upon acceptance was transferred to Moon where I had launched the VOOX website in the summer of 2020.&nbsp;<h3>Right plan, wrong content</h3>At first, there were only three people on the VOOX team and we didn't have any background knowledge on how to create content. But the important things we wanted to do back then are the same as what we want to do now: provide content that could be listened to within 10-minutes, organize the information so that it’s easy to navigate, and make learning easier and more accessible to everyone.&nbsp; Initially, we tried to create 100 10-minute segments of content focused on the theme of economics, something we thought everyone would like to learn more about. But it turned out that it wasn't interesting content for listeners. Our planning was right, but the content itself just wasn’t interesting enough. It proved impossible to listen to such long content all the way through. I decided to look for an editor. Then I met Fumio Iwasa, the current editor-in-chief of VOOX, who has 30 years of experience in book editing and is also a former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review. Together, we reviewed the world view and editorial policy at VOOX and arrived at the current format, a series of six 10-minute episodes, which allows us to offer a variety of topics.&nbsp;<h3>Keeping authors authentic</h3>At first, we tried to make 100 episodes, but we soon learned that even if we divided the episodes into 10 series, the content would start to overlap in the middle of the series. For this reason, we decided to limit the number of episodes to six.&nbsp; We prepared a landing page and recruited about 120 users to test it out. On that page, we provided three recorded samples:&nbsp;<ol><li>A narrator reads the trend summary articles published by VC.</li><li>A narrator reads their own summary of the book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/Blitzscaling-Lightning-Fast-Building-Massively-Companies-ebook/dp/B0791239V7/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&amp;crid=3D4QYFT3EFJB2&amp;keywords=blitz+scaling&amp;qid=1695110423&amp;sprefix=blitzscaling%2Caps%2C151&amp;sr=8-2">BLITZSCALING</a>.</li><li>The book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E8%B5%B7%E6%A5%AD%E3%81%AE%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6-%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%82%A8%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9-%E7%94%B0%E6%89%80-%E9%9B%85%E4%B9%8B/dp/4822259757">The Science of Entrepreneurship: Startup Science</a> is explained by the author himself.</li></ol>The recordings with commentary by the authors themselves achieved the best results, much more than the others.&nbsp; Option 3 was originally listed as "commentary by the author," whether the content was read by a third-party narrator or by the author. But after qualitative interviews with users about their impressions and the extent to which they remembered the audio content, we learned that the users who chose “commentary by the author themself" were the ones who reportedly retained the most information. When creating audio content, our goal is to try and preserve the author's authenticity as much as possible. We prepare a simple bulleted list of questions for the author to address at the time of recording instead of providing a script for them to read. We don’t edit the recordings, although we sometimes re-record any mistakes. This method seems to work well for not only the user, but also the author.&nbsp; It really helps the authors to organize their thoughts. As a matter of fact, there is even a newly published book based on the content of a VOOX talk. The author, who had no intention of writing a book, realized that he could turn his audio content into a book after talking about it at VOOX. We connected the author with a publishing company, which eventually led to the publication of his book. With an increase in such cases, we have come to realize that VOOX is beginning to produce new benefits not just for authors and listeners, but also for editors and publishers.&nbsp;<h3>Connecting authors, editors, and publishers</h3>Originally, the main objective of VOOX was to have authors read and comment on their own content in audio form. However, every time we spoke with the authors, they would digress and tell stories that went beyond the books in discussion. Then I tried asking authors to not only talk about the applicable book, but also about the entire topic or subject. By doing so, we developed brand-new audio content, which further developed into new publications. One time, an author was writing a book and got a little stumped, so he decided to try and overcome his writer’s block by talking about it on VOOX. That author happened to be our editor-in-chief, but we used VOOX as a place to reinvigorate his inspiration and perspective.&nbsp; Sometimes an author will use it in that way, and other times, they'll have a topic that they've been trying to write a book on, but have neglected it for a long time. So, they'll talk about it on VOOX as a way to refresh their ideas.&nbsp; When you think about it, there are a number of advantages for editors to work with VOOX – it’s a place to learn about authors who are not yet widely known. It’s a place to relieve authors of stumbling blocks and dead-ends and a place to stimulate planning and ideas. It’s a place to discover new authors. And, of course, a place to promote books. In fact, more and more people are contacting us organically. When we find a good book and contact the publisher, the publisher, in turn, contacts us to ask what we think about the book. We are also hearing more from people who are interested in the books that have been published on VOOX. I am very happy to say that in our third year, we are gradually expanding our relationships not only with authors and editors, but with publishers as well.I was happy to hear one of our editors say, "I wasn't sure where I could transfer my book editing skills, but now I know that I can use them in this kind of situation.” I was excited to hear that he thought VOOX could be a new way to apply his skills.<figure class="media"><oembed url="https://vimeo.com/859211849"></oembed></figure><h3>Bringing authors and readers together</h3>Nowadays, the number of people who read books is decreasing rapidly. I don't want this to continue, so I hope VOOX can become a service that can create synergy with books. We did not set out to replace books, but to introduce them. On top of that, we are trying to create a deeper connection between readers and authors. We are currently reaching more people by making VOOX content available on Amazon’s Audible. On the other hand, we think that for fans and listeners of a particular author, even 60 minutes of content isn’t enough, so we are trying to create more ways to deepen the communication between authors and readers. The "pre-publication book club" was one of the ideas we came up with to address that issue. Learn more in the video below (in Japanese).<figure class="media"><oembed url="https://vimeo.com/859212188"></oembed></figure>Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we had never been able to hold an offline event before. But when we held our first in-person event to meet authors, it was more exciting than we had ever imagined. I remember that the authors were very lively because readers came to the events. We plan to do more of these events in the future. Since audio content is a niche market, we are always thinking about ways to make it more widely known. With a Japanese magazine, if 50,000 people know about your business, you can say that everyone knows about it to some extent. Or if the book is on the shelves of a bookstore, you can feel a sense of response. We are still creating content one by one, thinking about how we can create a similar outcome with VOOX.&nbsp;*This article was originally written in Japanese and has been translated and edited for clarity.<hr>VOOX launched its <a href="https://www.voox.me/">website</a> in 2020, followed by its app (<a href="https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/voox/id1546175303">iOS</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.voox&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US&amp;pli=1">Android</a>) in 2021. A book’s worth of knowledge is narrated directly from leading experts from various fields, including Taizo Son, Dai Tamesue, Ken Kusunoki, Shu Yamaguchi, and others. New series are available for free for two weeks after its release. In June 2023, VOOX began providing content to Audible, the world's largest audiobook and audio content production and distribution service. On June 27, an event was held to celebrate the publication of Surrender Theory with former professional baseball player and current business coach, Yuhki Takamori. In July, VOOX also held a pre-publication reading of Maturity Theory with Dai Tamesue. Follow VOOX on <a href="https://twitter.com/VOOX_jp">X (formerly Twitter)</a> for the latest news and useful knowledge from each series. &nbsp;

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Lullaby is a personalized sleep training service and platform for parents and their newborns.In this article, hear from founder Yukari Tago on how cultural differences and an unfortunate accident inspired her to create Lullaby.&nbsp;<h3> Key Learnings&nbsp;</h3><ul><li>Different countries, different childbirth experiences&nbsp;</li><li>An accidental wake-up call</li><li>Better sleep becomes more than a dream</li><li>Global effects of sleep deprivation</li></ul><hr><figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image1_74171e0d92.jpg" alt="image1.jpg"><figcaption>Yukari Tago, founder of Lullaby</figcaption></figure><h3>Different countries, different childbirth experiences&nbsp;</h3>The launch of Lullaby was greatly influenced by my experience giving birth in the United States. While the procedures and preparations were more inconvenient and difficult than in Japan, I was surprised at the high level of child-rearing literacy that mothers had in the U.S.Japan is safe and well insured. With an infant medical care card, you can receive free medical care throughout the country. But the situation is quite different in the United States.One time I was at a friend of mine’s US-based home and I had noticed her thick medical dictionaries covered in sticky notes. She told me that she went through every detail of a recent doctor visit’s recommendation, such as whether there is a generic version of a recommended drug, if there is a cheaper alternative, what tests were recommended, etc. She even had suggested options that differed from her doctor's opinion!&nbsp;There were also differences in the birthing process. I had to choose the hospital where I would give birth and also make an appointment with an obstetrician that was covered under my medical insurance. Immediately after birth, I was assigned a pediatrician, and I needed to make an appointment with that doctor in advance. Making separate appointments for the hospital and the doctor was a big difference in itself, but I was indeed surprised when I asked an acquaintance for a hospital recommendation, he replied, "X hospital won't rip you off.”Since I did not have many local acquaintances I decided on a hospital on my own after gathering information using classified websites and other resources. Other mothers I had met were so skilled in gathering such information, which was quite impressive to me. Also, in California, it was not unusual for mothers to return to work three months after childbirth, and it seemed normal for them to invest time and money in preparing for this.One of the things I learned through my experience giving birth in the U.S. was sleep training, which helps babies develop the habit of falling asleep on their own rather than being put to sleep by co-sleeping or being held, as is typical in Japan. My obstetrician told me about the importance of sleep training and how proper sleep health, for both child and parent, is essential. After all, “you can't raise a healthy child if you are exhausted,” as she said.I still wasn't sure whether or not to actually seek sleep training consulting, but an unforeseen event occurred when my child was six months old which drove my need for it. &nbsp;<h3>An accidental wake-up call</h3>My baby was continuously crying at night, leaving me so exhausted that it was hard for me to function throughout the day.When my baby was six months old, he was still crying throughout the night, and I started noticing how constantly foggy my mind was during the day. One day, while he was sleeping on the couch, I took my eyes off of him for just a moment, but when he woke up he fell right off the couch. Had I not been sleep deprived, I probably would have kept a closer eye on him or noticed the moment he woke up.Fortunately, it was nothing too serious. But I remember panicking and rushing to call a cab to take him to the hospital. I was terrified that I might have caused serious injuries. After that scary accident, I decided to seek consulting for sleep training.<blockquote>"You can't raise a healthy child if you are exhausted.”</blockquote><h3>Better sleep becomes more than a dream</h3>Before that incident, I had only considered sleep training. In California, where I had given birth, mothers often returned to work three months postpartum. It was common practice to work with a sleep consultant – a professional that handles sleep training and nighttime crying – to prepare a baby’s sleep environment, allowing the mother to return to work fully equipped to handle nighttime crying and sleep training on her own.At the time I had been reading The Happiest Baby on the Block, a well-known book about parenting and increasing a baby’s sleep, since my son was three months old. But just reading about it didn’t really help the problem I was facing. I still wasn’t sure what to do.The couch incident showed me that I had not been thinking clearly thanks to my baby’s continued night time crying and my own unwavering sleep deprivation. I decided to seek help right away. After receiving consultation and working on sleep training with my husband, I saw a change in my baby’s sleep pattern after just three days.We would leave the room after putting my baby to sleep and watch him through the monitor to measure the time from the start of crying to the end of crying, and we would let him cry for about five minutes, then have contact with him for two minutes, and leave again for a short while, following a time chart. If I had been alone without my husband’s support, I would have broken down when I heard my baby crying.The first few days were pretty rough but to my surprise he quickly began to adapt. After a few weeks, I was actually able to sleep through the night on my own as if by magic. I was so happy about it that when I shared it on Instagram, I was inundated with questions from my friends in Japan, "What is sleep training!?"I received the same response from other people who used sleep training with their infants using the same method as I did. To this day, I still receive comments from users of the Lullaby app saying that they start to see changes in their infants after about the third day. Of course, there are individual differences, but that is the magic of sleep training! You can see improvement almost immediately.For me, the change was drastic. I had read some papers with scientific evidence at the time, but I felt that perhaps if I had the knowledge, parenting would be much easier.I was finally able to get more sleep and I even had enough time to myself that I could take night classes at UCLA Extension. Looking back, the first three to four months after giving birth are a hurdle for just about anyone looking to sleep train because it is a time when the baby does not yet have the strength to sleep through the night. With such knowledge, I would have felt more relaxed about the position I was in.<h3> Global effects of sleep deprivation</h3>Since my job was to develop new businesses in the EdTech industry, I had the opportunity to hear directly from CEOs and COOs about startups in Japan and overseas at the time. Perhaps that is where I was first attracted to the world of startups.Later, I became pregnant in 2016, gave birth in 2017, took maternity leave, and returned to work in 2018. At that time, I particularly remembered the words of a senior employee at Mitsui &amp; Co. who had started his own business. He said that when it comes to new businesses, it’s important to find a deep pain point. If it is deep, and if it is an issue that you want to solve no matter how much money you have to pay, it should be a viable business.&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/design-research">Why Design Research Is Important in Building a Startup</a>&nbsp;After my son was born, for the first time in my life I was faced with the challenge of sleep deprivation. It was the most physically and mentally exhausting experience of my life so far, a true pain point.While sleep training was a common solution in the U.S., it wasn’t in Japan. I thought, "This is it!" I continued to gather information to commercialize this idea. I later learned that Moon was going to hold its first pitch event, so I decided to apply. It seemed like a good opportunity. I pitched my idea for Lullaby and that was the start of my business to improve children's nighttime crying and improve parent’s own sleep.Later, Dr. Mariko Morita, who participated in the project as a supervising physician, also found that the problems related to bedtime are significant.According to data published by Ehime University in 2018, Japan ranks last when comparing the total length of sleep of three-year-olds in 17 major countries1.But it's not just children’s sleep that is affected. Data published by the OECD in 2016 showed that Japanese adult males had the fourth-shortest total sleep duration of all 38 countries at the time (35 OECD member countries plus China, India, and South Africa), and adult females in Japan had the lowest sleep duration2.Sleep deprivation is a major problem in Japan, and many people associate this to their feelings of anxiety about returning to work after parental leave, to fight because of frustration with their children not sleeping, to get divorced because their marriage deteriorates, or to suffer from postpartum depression. Although the methodology on how to improve this nighttime crying problem has not been established at all in Japan, there is evidence for the effectiveness of sleep training.Out of 52 treatment studies from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 94% of the studies report that sleep training has been effective in improving nighttime crying, and more than 80% of children demonstrated significant improvement that was maintained for three-six months3. Even though the results are well documented, in Japan, there are no medical institutions or midwifery centers to provide guidance.Research has shown that the rate of postpartum depression, stated to originally be about 15%, has increased to about 30% due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic4, which may have a significant impact on mental health. And problems related to infant sleep contribute to the increased percentage as well.I created Lullaby to help solve this very problem. &nbsp;&nbsp;Lullaby is currently expanding its business domain by matching sleep consultants, providing reliable childcare information under the supervision of sleep medicine physicians, and developing other services such as general childcare consultation services.The company has also begun joint development with Pigeon, and as of July 2023, plans to offer a "Nen-ne Kaizen Pack," which combines several services including the use of an application for local governments and the provision of sleep seminars for parents. Demonstration tests of the effectiveness of sleep improvement for families with infants and toddlers will begin sequentially in five municipalities: Kashiwabara City (Osaka Prefecture), Namegata City (Ibaraki Prefecture), Otsuki City (Yamanashi Prefecture), Gyoda City (Saitama Prefecture), and Morioka City (Iwate Prefecture).&nbsp;&nbsp;Check out the <a href="https://www.lullabysleepbaby.com/">Lullaby website</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lullabysleepbaby/">Instagram</a> for the latest information and updates! &nbsp;&nbsp;*1 <a href="http://childsleep.org/guideline/wp-content/uploads/%E6%9C%AA%E5%B0%B1%E5%AD%A6%E5%85%90%E3%81%AE%E7%9D%A1%E7%9C%A0%E6%8C%87%E9%87%9D.pdf">Health, Labour and Welfare Science Research Grants: Research Group on Sleep and Use of Information and Communication Devices by Preschool Children</a> (ed.). Sleep guidelines for preschool children. Ehime: Sleep Medical Center, Ehime University Hospital, 2018.*2 <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/521957/time-spent-sleeping-countries/">Average minutes per day spent sleeping in OECD countries plus China, India and South Africa by gender</a>, as of 2016*3 <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17068979/">Behavioral treatment of bedtime problems and night wakings in infants and young children</a>.*4 <a href="https://www.kuhs.ac.jp/shi/news/details_01448.html">Drastically increased postpartum depression during the COVID-19 pandemic and its association with social restrictions.</a>

<a href="https://goril.jp/">GORIL</a> is a digital product that teaches native Japanese speakers proper pronunciation and articulation of the English language through visualization and providing real-time feedback.They recently launched a new web application, <a href="https://demo.goril.jp/">GORIL48</a>, which visualizes the user’s sounds when they speak out loud. An illustrated animation shows its mouth and tongue moving along with the sound, showing the user how to articulate the correct English pronunciation based on the correct mouth movements. But how did Satoshi Yoshida, founder of GORIL, come up with this idea? Read on to hear Satoshi describe how GORIL came to be, from idea to research and ultimately, product launch.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/image1_8b8b316cf1.jpg" alt="image1.jpg"><figcaption>Satoshi Yoshida, GORIL founder: Satoshi studied abroad at a university in Wisconsin, USA., as an exchange student while in college. After graduation, he joined Mitsui &amp; Co. in the fall of 2021 and was transferred to Moon Creative Lab as an in-house entrepreneur. In April 2023, he launched the iOS app GORIL Beta, and in August 2023, the web app GORIL48.</figcaption></figure><h3>Is it “food” or “hood”?</h3>The prototype of the idea came to me around 1997. When I was in college, I studied abroad as an exchange student at a university in Wisconsin, but even after six months, my English pronunciation had not improved at all and I lacked confidence.I struggled with taking notes in class because I could not comprehend what was being said, and even when I tried my best to speak English, I was always asked, "What did you just say?” I was always in a constant state of anxiety.My interest in the English language started long before college though. In junior high school, my life was all about baseball. I practiced endless hours without a break, aiming for the Koshien (National High School Baseball Championship), and English was the only thing I was interested in other than baseball. I had this vague idea that if I could master English, I would eventually expand my horizons.When an exchange student from Australia transferred to my school in my second year of high school, I was assigned to be his class guide. At first, he could barely speak Japanese, so I spent a year at school with him, carrying both Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionaries. However, only having been taught English by Japanese teachers up to that point, I was honestly at a loss with understanding English.For example, I could not understand the difference between "food" and "hood" at all. I asked the exchange student to pronounce those words for me dozens of times and I repeated it so much that he told me to give it a rest, but still I couldn't understand it – and this problem came up again later in life when I studied abroad in the U.S. Not only was it difficult to properly formulate what I wanted to say in English, but I was also having problems getting him to understand what I was saying through my pronunciation in the first place!My scores on written tests did not reflect the difficulty I was experiencing with pronunciation – it was a completely different situation. And after much trial and error to figure out what to do at that point, the idea came to me of what would become the prototype for GORIL.<blockquote>"I could not understand the difference between 'food' and 'hood' at all."</blockquote><h3>Learning through imitation</h3>Six months into my U.S. study, I was still struggling with my English pronunciation. I decided at that moment that I needed to ask a classmate to teach me. The classmate I reached out to was an English as a Second Language (ESL) major and aspired to become a teacher, so the student was eager to help me.One day while practicing, I suddenly started looking at my classmates' mouths and imagining the shape of their mouths and the movement of their tongues and muscles. When I was finally told, "That was good," I became aware that the shape of my mouth and the movement of my tongue was important in my pronunciation! Suddenly, I was able to pronounce the words correctly and was given positive feedback.Overtime, I was able to imitate other sounds as well, and I was able to apply these sounds to words more and more. Eventually, people would tell me, "You have good pronunciation! Where did you learn to speak like that?" I gradually gained the confidence I was lacking and actually wanted to speak more English. This made me think that perhaps my method for pronunciation could be replicated to improve other’s English pronunciation as well. &nbsp;<h3>Still a student, not quite the teacher yet</h3>Since joining Mitsui, I’ve worked mostly in logistics. But in 2015, I was transferred to Singapore as a port operator. At the time, a colleague of mine, who was also transferred, wanted to improve his English pronunciation. I remembered my university days and tried the same pronunciation approach, this time as the teacher and he was the student.But when I told him, "Try to visualize the opening of your mouth, the position and use of your tongue, and adjust the way you produce the sound," he did not understand what I meant by "visualize." No matter how many times I tried to explain the concept, I couldn’t get it right. He told me, "If I could see the image you are talking about more clearly, I think I would be able to do it." I began to agonize over it.The port operator I was managing at the time was forming a task force to think of how to create new businesses for the next generation, and I was fortunate enough to join. We didn't really know how to come up with new ideas, and we didn't have much experience, but as the task force members worked with Moon on the ideas, we gradually became fascinated by the novelty of Moon's approach.At that time, I thought the idea of "visualizing pronunciation" could be potentially materialized at Moon. Fortunately, I got the support of the people around me, including my boss at the time, and I made my pitch in March 2021. &nbsp;<h3>Design research</h3>With Moon’s wide variety of professional resources, we were connected with Takuya Yamagishi, a design researcher who is still currently working on GORIL with us. The research we conducted at the time revealed that 3D models developed to improve pronunciation already existed in the speech therapy industry.In fact, the existing 3D model closely mimicked the movements of my classmates' mouths when I was studying in the U.S., but it was too complicated for users to understand, which really surprised me.Of course, I was very particular about the 3D model I had in mind, and some linguists who collaborated with us agreed that a three-dimensional representation would be better to visualize pronunciation, but the users' reactions were different. I think they didn't intuitively know how to imitate it.We have talked to nearly 200 people, and 100 of which we have provided workshops and lessons to. I came to believe that there needed to be a more intuitive system to understand how one's mouth opens and how the tongue is positioned to produce a certain sound. As a result, I began to think about a two-dimensional interface that would allow me to roughly understand the opening of my mouth and the position of my tongue, and my ideas evolved into the current form of the program. &nbsp;<h3>2D proves better than 3D</h3>The team decided to utilize 2D to teach pronunciation and we have even gamified the experience. We developed familiar games like pinball where users must pronounce vowel sounds in order to control the game.<figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Goril_image_2_f4a7c592d5.jpg" alt="Goril image 2.jpg"><figcaption>The pictured interface uses formant frequencies to output to two-dimensional coordinates. By objectively capturing the characteristics of the sound and showing them in the visuals, the mouth movements are expressed in a way that is easy to imitate.</figcaption></figure>This simplification was easy to understand because the way people understand different sounds may differ from person to person. Even when people say that they understand and can pronounce a sound, some might be able to imitate it naturally and immediately, while others might not. Even when it comes to listening, there are some people who can separate listening into many elements and others who cannot.When you practice English pronunciation with GORIL, you are turning pronunciation into a simple exercise of moving your mouth into a certain shape, and once you learn it, it’s hard to forget – much like riding a bicycle.The 100+ people who have tried GORIL so far have confirmed its effectiveness, and I am now convinced that anyone can understand it and create a new muscle memory related to English pronunciation, as long as it is visualized in this way.In my 2021 pitch, my Singaporean English, or “Singlish,” was in full swing because I had been in Singapore for a long time. Some of the Moon Committee members I was pitching to commented, "Satoshi's English is special, isn't it!” But, as I’ve learned from my own experience, English has many different pronunciations to begin with.GORIL will start with American English, but in the future, we would like to include British English, Australian English, Singaporean English, and many others. Though we have already visualized a portion of the Japanese language, we believe that there is ample potential for visualization of languages other than Japanese and English. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;GORIL released the iOS app (beta version) GORIL in April 2023 and its web app <a href="https://demo.goril.jp/">GORIL48</a> in August. GORIL has been actively communicating their work in English pronunciation by holding events, appearing on radio programs, and starting their own podcast, "GORIL Pronunciation Club" (available on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/08ldUbbRAc2fxR9sSZlKUP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goril-%E7%99%BA%E9%9F%B3%E9%83%A8/id1689364810">Apple Podcasts</a>, and <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lMDUzMTM0MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw?hl=ja">Google Podcasts</a>).In the future, GORIL intends to develop an English-learning support tool that allows parents and children to learn pronunciation together, and to visualize not only words but also sentences. They are also looking at applying this technology for learning languages around the world. For the latest information, please visit <a href="https://goril.jp/">GORIL's official website</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Goril_English">Twitter</a>.&nbsp;Check back here frequently as we will be sharing more stories and updates about GORIL.

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Is the Labor Shortage Real? Why a Matching Service Dedicated to Digital Work Was Created｜aequol Inc.

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Books as an Experience: How Author Narration Drives Listener Engagement

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Seeing Language: How GORIL Helps Visualize Pronunciation for English Learners

In The News

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Moon Welcomes Community of Individuals, Corporations, and Startup Teams To Build Innovative New Businesses

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