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AsiaIndustrial NetNews: According to reports, Unifa, a company located in Nagoya, Japan, which uses IT technology to provide guardianship services for kindergarten children, stood out and won the championship in the global venture capital enterprise “Entrepreneurship World Cup Competition” held in March. The reason for the award is that the company has used IT technology in the frontline of kindergartens lacking nursery personnel since its establishment four years ago, effectively solving the problem of child care and reducing the burden on nurses.

The founder of Unifa, Toki Yasuyuki, was originally engaged in corporate investment in the venture capital company of Sumitomo Corporation. His motivation for starting a business was that his husband and wife were dual workers and it was difficult to take care of their children. Toki Yasuyuki’s wife works in a company in Aichi Prefecture. After the child is born, neither husband and wife can give up their work to take care of the child. So Toki came up with the idea of ​​”starting a business with children and family as the starting point”. He quit his job at Sumitomo Corporation, left Tokyo and moved to Aichi Prefecture, where he began to embark on the road of entrepreneurship.
Unifa, which employs 48 people, has developed a system that stores photos taken at kindergartens on servers and sells them to parents. Parents log in to the computer with their child’s photo, and the AI ​​system will automatically search for children with similar facial features and Display multiple photos. The AI ​​artificial intelligence system saves childcare workers the time to sift through photos. This service has been introduced by 1,500 child welfare institutions such as kindergartens, and the annual operating income can reach several hundred million yen.
In addition, Unifa has developed a smallrobot“MEEBO”, with such performance and potential, entered the “Startup World Competition” held in San Francisco, USA. In the final, Unifa won the championship in the competition with 14 companies from 12 countries that entered the final at the same time, and won a prize of 100 million yen.