Saturday, June 14, 2025

A Wonderful Day at Centennial Beach

If you have a chance to visit Barrie in Ontario, Centennial Beach would be a must-see place. It’s located on Kempenfelt Bay, which is part of Lake Simcoe. The beach has soft sand and calm water, making it a great place to relax, swim, or just enjoy the view. In the summer, there are lifeguards on duty, so it's safe for everyone, including kids.


Around the beach, there are many things to do. You can play volleyball, basketball, or use the playground. There are also walking trails along the water, picnic tables, and barbecue areas. It’s a good place to spend the whole day with friends or family. The beach is clean and well-maintained, and there are public washrooms nearby, which is very helpful.


It's easy to get there. You can drive there and park nearby, or take a walk or ride your bike. In the summer, you can also rent E-bikes to explore the area. The beach is right near downtown Barrie, so there are shops and restaurants close by too.

One special season to visit is in August, during a big event called Kempenfest. It’s a popular arts and music festival with food, crafts, and live shows. Part of the event also includes a swim across the bay that starts at the beach. It’s a fun and exciting time, and the area is full of energy and people enjoying themselves.


What I like most about Centennial Beach is that it has a mix of fun and peace. You can play and be active, but also sit quietly and watch the water or the sunset. It’s a beautiful place that brings people together and shows the best of summer in Ontario. If you haven’t been there yet, I highly recommend visiting. It’s a simple but special place to enjoy nature and relax.


Homepages:

Centennial Park & Beach

Kempenfest 2025 concert lineup


Location in Centennial Beach

65 Lakeshore Dr, Barrie, ON L9S 3T7, Canada


Thursday, June 12, 2025

Introducing Myself

Hi everyone! My name is Taichi Kobayashi, and I am excited to join Tenatch as a new intern. I am from Japan and currently studying cybersecurity at Georgian College in Canada. Before that, I spent time studying and working in Japan. I have over five years of experience working in IT infrastructure and two years in web development, where I handled everything from setting up Linux and Windows servers to managing networks, databases, and automation tools. During that time, I developed strong skills in troubleshooting, scripting, and system security.

This is my first time working at a start-up, and I really appreciate the chance to learn and grow in this environment. I have a strong interest in cybersecurity, web development and AI. I am learning advanced skills in areas like network defense, cloud security, and penetration testing. I have also taken part in hands-on training at Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst, where I practiced real-world attack and defense scenarios like privilege escalation and Kerberoasting.

In the future, I hope to work remotely as a digital nomad while traveling and experiencing different cultures. I believe that this internship would be the key to pursue my IT career.

Outside of school and work, I enjoy watching the TV drama Suits in my spare time. I find the characters and legal stories really interesting, and it also helps me improve my English listening skills. This drama was set in New York and Toronto, which is also why I came to Canada. I also like traveling and exploring new places whenever I have the chance.

I am looking forward to working with everyone and learning together during this internship!

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Malaysia x Japan event

Recently, I went to a networking event for Malaysian companies and Japanese investors in Tokyo, run by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and others with connections to both Malaysia and Japan. It was a great opportunity to build connections with other start-ups from Malaysia and introduce tsuin.ai to people.

At the Industry Networking Night

The atmosphere at the event was nice and friendly. It began with a few short speeches about previous successes of similar start-ups connecting Malaysia and Japan and welcoming messages. We took a photo with everybody who participated in the event as well.

One of the people I talked to at the event was Chor Chee Hoe, who introduced me to Qarbotech. They are developing technology to accelerate photosynthesis using a completely organic solution to be sprayed on plants. Chor Chee Hoe demonstrated this technology to me using two vials, one which had regular water in it and the other one with the organic solution. Shining a flashlight into both vials, it was clear that the one with the organic solution reflected the light a lot brighter. This was a fascinating demonstration of how such a solution can be used to enhance photosynthesis.

With Chor Chee Hoe

When I talked to people about tsuin.ai there, they seemed to be sympathetic to the need for a twin agent to help with software maintenance, especially as many of them had experience with developing software. We also had an interesting discussion about the way the digital twin should be trained, with a few people expressing ideas about how the AI should learn the coding style and logic of the best or most efficient programmer so that it can be standardised for everybody else. A similar idea is in fact aimed to be done with tsuin.ai as well, since the AI twin will be developed to have a company knowledge base of individual developers and teams on top of industry best practice knowledge. This way, it functions as a living knowledge base.

It was also great to talk to others about more personal things including university, living in different countries such as Japan, the UK and so on. I also talked to someone who was interested in using tsuin.ai in their business. 

Finally, the food offered at the event was fantastic, as I find Malaysian cuisine delicious. It was nice to be able to have dishes such as mee goreng, otak-otak, kuih bakar and more !

Food at the event

For me, this event helped me to see how networking happens and industry connections are built. It is something inspiring for the future.

Friday, May 16, 2025

SusHi Tech Tokyo 2025

On May 8, I went to SusHi Tech Tokyo. It was a great opportunity to talk with various other companies, share about tsuin.ai and learn about interesting new initiatives. I previously went to Takeoff Tokyo which was a similar event, so I had ideas of what I could expect there. I wrote about my experience at Takeoff Tokyo as well here.

When I arrived at SusHi Tech Tokyo, the first thing that stood out to me was the scale of the event. It was even larger than Takeoff Tokyo with more booths and people attending. The next thing I noticed was that the event was more international than I expected, which I found great. I could see booths for companies from Germany, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Malaysia and more.

Booth of companies from France at SusHi Tech Tokyo

The first person I talked to at the event was Yuki Shirato. I participated in his interactive presentation about the Techstars accelerator programs. The audience was about 4 people, and we all introduced ourselves. I was the only person representing a start-up, so I was glad to be able to introduce tsuin.ai to the people there. The Techstars accelerator program was very interesting to learn about, as it is an incredible opportunity for founders of 12 selected start-ups to gain experience, learn and launch there business further. This is done with a 3 months bootcamp for founders, and an investment. Tsuin.ai has also already applied for this program.

With Yuki Shirato and Techstars Tokyo

As tsuin.ai is a Malaysian start-up, I decided to first talk to other start-ups from Malaysia at the event. Thus I went to the Malaysia booth run by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). One of the companies I talked with there was Boostorder, where I found out about the possibilities of sales automation through our conversation.

At the Boostorder and MDEC booth

Later on in the day, I went to the Switzerland booth to talk with a couple of companies that sparked my interest. One of them was CynLr, which researches and develops a robot capable of performing physical tasks such as picking up items. I approached the booth because it reminded me of a lecture I attended at another event previously, which discussed the developments and challenges of robots powered by AI that could recognise objects, fold towels and so on. I talked there with a researcher at CynLr, Dr. Michael Bombile. I learned that the concept of CynLr was slightly different from what I heard in the other lecture it initially reminded me of. This robot was not capable of recognising objects specifically, but it was could perform general operations on any objects such as picking it up and moving it. The concept therefore was to create a general purpose robot capable of performing those basic functions that can be adapted later on to various applications, through added "intelligence" such as the ability to differentiate objects or perform a pattern of the basic tasks. An analogy was made to developing personal computers which are capable of performing all kinds of basic tasks and operations so that it can be adapted to specific needs by installing applications. The robot is therefore like building such a computer. I thought this concept was very interesting.

With Dr. Michael Bombile from CynLr

Last but certainly not least, I had a great discussion with Cécile Maye, who is the CEO of AckTao. I wanted to find out more about AckTao because it seemed to be about technology for education, which is something I am interested in. After I introduced tsuin.ai, she explained AckTao to me, which is an educational program for raising awareness about cybersecurity. The educational philosophy is "learning by doing", so users get placed in various scenarios where they must answer questions on risks related to cybersecurity. It also has an AI that adjusts the level according to each user. I found this discussion inspiring, as I am thinking of making my own educational websites or applications as well, possibly one for learning languages. I thought that this kind of idea with interactive scenarios and AI powered level adaptation would be great to try to implement.

With Cécile Maye of AckTao

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Takeoff Tokyo 2025 Experience

Hello, this is Kanta K. I would like to share about my experience going to the 2025 Takeoff Tokyo event as an intern with tsuin.ai. Takeoff Tokyo is an annual event featuring a wide variety of start-ups, investors, panel discussions and start-up pitches. I went there with the goal of hearing from the other start-ups and to network by having conversations and sharing information about tsuin.ai as well. Overall, it was a great experience and I would like to share some of the highlights here.

On the first day of the event, I arrived at Big Sight Tokyo where the event was held, and like the name of the venue suggests, it was a very big building with modern architecture. I found it fitting for an event featuring so many novel technologies and fascinating ideas !

Photo I took when I arrived at Big Sight Tokyo

When I arrived at the hall where Takeoff Tokyo was held, I started by talking with the Newell Road start-up. They are developing an artificial intelligence tool for market analysis and business insights to help businesses. What I found interesting was the way their connections to other institutions gave them access to data for the tool that allowed them to have a competitive edge over similar start-ups.

With Newell Road start-up

Through further conversations with other start-ups, I learned about uses for AI technology that I was previously unaware of. For example, I talked to a person who was working on an AI to help make dental impressions, collaborating with various dentists across Japan. 

I have the impression that when most people think about AI, it is likely they think of ones such as ChatGPT which individual users and consumers can access. However, what I found at Takeoff Tokyo was that there were many other AI tools that were geared towards businesses as well to perform a range of different functions from financial analysis and business insights to planning to become more environmentally friendly. Kurrant.ai is an example of the former and Green AI that of the latter.

With Kurrant.ai (left) and Green AI (right)

I found these to be exciting, because they present opportunities for collaboration between different start-ups in the future. By having conversations at an event like Takeoff Tokyo, I felt that I could be part of the path towards these collaborations. I find this to be one of the values of networking. When I explained about tsuin.ai to people from other start-ups, many of them took an interest, especially those who had experience with software development themselves, and said that they could see using tsuin.ai in their businesses too !

On my second day at Takeoff Tokyo, I had further interesting conversations. For example, there was an AI company called SWIRL which combined many different AI models into one and had impressive capabilities of being able to find and organise data from huge databases. In my conversation with them, they told me about their customers which includes Harvard University, who uses the tool for providing a chat bot to prospective students asking questions about applications to the university. Simultaneously, other customers used the tool for more business applications, where they could automate tasks using databases and drastically reduce the time it took.

With SWIRL

One thing that stood out to me was a discussion that I had with the founder of MusicMoney.ai. At first, I approached the booth because music is one of my hobbies and their slogan about music promotion using memes caught my eye. The idea was interesting, where musicians and their fans are able to promote their music using AI which generates promotion media from music and photo material that is provided to the AI by the artist themselves. He remarked that this was an ethical use of AI, because the generation does not make use of any stolen material used without consent. He is developing a tool called IPTO.AI as well, where users can submit media that they want to be used for training AI models. This way, it is paving the way for a more ethical future of AI where data rights are respected. I felt that this was a very important consideration and I appreciated his unique insights and ideas that I believe has lots of potential.

With MusicMoney.ai and IPTO.AI

Thank you for reading !



Friday, March 14, 2025

Business Idea: Applying AI to Robotics

Introduction

Hello everyone, this is Kanta K. and here, I introduce my business idea.

In recent years, there has been much discussion especially in Japan surrounding the issue of the aging of the population and the lack of people and services to take care of elderly people. I would like to propose a business idea which advances reliable artificial intelligence technologies and utilises this for supporting more independent and safe lives, especially for elderly people.


Concept

The concept for the business is to sell artificial intelligence robots capable of performing various tasks including some housework and safety monitoring. These robots will be connected to a server that hosts the data and program for the artificial intelligence. People will be able to use it to help them at home by talking to it, potentially giving instructions.

Several months ago, I attended a conference and listened to a presentation applying artificial intelligence to robotics technologies. This involved the robot learning to complete tasks such as identifying items in a refrigerator or folding towels. This inspired me to come up with this business idea.


Example of AI robot folding a towel for laundry
(Image source: https://www.iotworldtoday.com/robotics/eve-humanoid-robot-folds-laundry)

Benefits

  • Helpful for elderly people: This business will free up time for people to pursue other things, and elderly people may also be able to work, resulting in increased productivity. It also ensures their safety in the home

  • Less burden for carers: The robot will be able to look out for most elderly people, ensuring their safety and allowing them to live more independently. This means carers can focus more on people who may require more attention.


Contents

In particular, the robot would be able to perform the following functions

  • ensuring safety with fire to aid cooking to make sure that the fire is turned off

  • ensure safety with stairs in the house to make sure there are no accidents with falling

  • a monitoring system in case something goes wrong, which alerts family members or anybody necessary for the incident

  • performs various housework including aiding with cooking, cleaning and washing or folding clothes


These applications of AI technology would require one that has a high reliability. This also ties into my personal interests in designing more reliable decision making AI and subjects such as formal methods. Moreover, another important aspect of this business is the accessibility and availability of the robot products. This means that the cost will need to be reduced as much as possible. One possible way to do this is to have the training data and the processing of the robot done on an external server elsewhere that each robot device connects to and is shared by all of these robots.


Summary

This application of AI technology to robotics is a relatively new area of research that has great potential in the future to help with societal issues such as aging population. It can have benefits that allow elderly people to live more independent lives and work if they wish to, while the workload of carers are reduced by some of the work being done by these robots.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Rooster Live Café in Ogikubo

Hello, I am Kanta K. and I would like to share about an interesting café that I used to go to when I was younger. It's located in Ogikubo in Tokyo, and it's called "Rooster". But this is not just an ordinary café, because it is actually a live café with live music. What's more, the live music is actually performed not only by professional musicians doing concerts, but also by the very customers at the café themselves ! In fact, I was one of those amateur musicians who would go to Rooster, enjoy the food there and also play guitar on stage.

Stage at Rooster
(Source: https://www.ogikubo-rooster.com/)

The way it works is that on select days, the stage would be available for people who want to play improvised blues jam sessions. If you were one of them, you would need to register for it and then attend like any other customer. Then, the organiser would call out your name when you are ready and you can join the musicians on stage and play with them. By doing this, we had a different combination of musicians each time who would come together for the first time and start jamming together.

In blues, we have specific chord progressions and musical scales that are used very frequently, so with all of us using these same chords and scales, we were able to start playing on the spot without any rehearsal. It was a great way to experience the magic and joy of music, almost like a language, as if we were communicating in real time through the melodies we each come up with on the spot.

The food there was great as well ! I particularly liked the spicy fried chicken there, which I would often eat in between going on the stage to perform.

If you play music and you're looking for others to play with in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, or even if you don't play music and you want to simply enjoy the joy and thrill of live improvised music as you eat delicious snacks, then this place is for you !

Thank you for reading !

Link to the website of Rooster: https://www.ogikubo-rooster.com/

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