Ateam operates businesses in various technological and business fields involving the internet as an IT company. We have always continued new endeavors while keeping up with technological innovation in the rapidly changing IT industry. We deliver technology-related information from engineers and utilize digital technology such as AI and digital transformation while promoting further technological innovation through operating our businesses and services. We will continue to contribute to the growth of the industry through various initiatives in technological fields.

Promoting Technological Innovation to Society through Our Engineer Community “Qiita”

The largest Japanese engineer community “Qiita” aims to become an essential service for engineers engaged in software development to build an infrastructure in the digital world. We will assist engineers to develop high-quality software products and services by operating services such as “Qiita” and “Qiita Team”. We believe that these initiatives will accelerate innovation in the tech society and foster goodwill in the world.

As an engineer community, “Qiita” regularly conducts seminars and meetings, and issues White Papers to boost the IT and engineering industries. We held various events such as “Qiita Conference” which is a talk session event for engineers with the theme of creating new opportunities for people involved in software development, the article posting event “Qiita Engineer Festa”, and the online talk event “Qiita Night” to share technology-related knowledge among top contributors within “Qiita”.

 

Moreover, “Qiita Advent Calender” is annually held since 2011. It is an article posting event held from December 1 to 25 by “Qiita”, based upon the custom of the Advent Calendar during the winter holiday season. One of this event’s great features is that the calendar specializes in engineering information, which makes it a fun opportunity to celebrate the holiday season with “Qiita”. In 2020, a total of 747 calendars were created and over 1,300 articles were posted by the “Qiita” community. With this endeavor, we have created a new type of interaction in the engineering industry.

Promoting AI Research and Development through “AI WORKING GROUP”

A corporate project related to AI was launched in Ateam in order to advance future technological innovations. The “AI Working Group” project started in 2018 to promote the study and development of AI. Its goal is to realize sustainable growth with technological innovations by utilizing AI and digital advancements in our businesses. We hold study groups to share AI-related information, implement AI measures in each of our businesses, and conduct seminars about AI for all employees. We make use of this project to share and store knowledge associated with AI so that we can improve our services.

AI Utilization Cases in Service Development

Reducing Costs by AI Image Recognition and Processing

“Life.” is a search site for information on funerals, Buddhist altars, tombstones, and inheritance. The service utilizes AI to automate image processing to recognize and erase letters engraved on a tombstone in photos used on the site, resulting in a reduction of costs and man-hours. We needed to modify 3,000 images every month as there are approximately 8,800 images of cemeteries used on the site. To make it more efficient, we developed a processing system that requires no human intervention and automatically processes letters extracted by AI with image processing tools, then formats the images to fit on the site. As a result, man-hours decreased by roughly 55% compared to before the technology’s introduction.

 

AI Prediction Function for Women’s Health in “Lalune”

“Lalune”, a women’s healthcare app released an AI-based function in February 2021 to predict ovulation dates after releasing a previous function in December 2019 that predicts menstrual dates. The aim of these developments is to assist women’s health by utilizing AI technology to provide personalized fertility information.

 

Demand Prediction and Product Recommendation AI

Our online bicycle store “cyma” utilizes AI in two functions: “Demand Prediction AI” to help manage inventory in relation to demand and “Product Recommendation AI” to suggest suitable products to customers.

“Demand Prediction AI” predicts future demand based on past product sales and other data to build a system that determines the required stock for future demand. This AI system allows the results to be displayed on Google Data Portal, Google Sheets, as well as Redash, a business intelligence tool for data analysis. Also, the system is adjustable depending on a person’s technical skills, which lets non-engineering personnel such as stock managers easily analyze and check the prediction data. Our “Product Recommendation AI” suggests bicycle accessories to accompany bicycle purchases to match every individual’s preference.

Providing Technology-related Information on Blogs

Ateam provides technology-related information through blogs and the “Qiita Organization” operated by our engineer community “Qiita”. We strive to contribute to the software industry by delivering knowledge and know-how acquired through development and operation of businesses and services. Furthermore, we will stimulate cooperation through the sharing of information among different organizations while participants can improve their individual skills.

Ateam Tech Blog

https://techblog.a-tm.co.jp/

Qiita Organization

Ateam：https://qiita.com/organizations/a-tm

Ateam Entertainment：https://qiita.com/organizations/ateam-entertainment

Ateam LifeDesign：https://qiita.com/organizations/ateam-life-design

Ateam Finergy：https://qiita.com/organizations/finergy-a-tm

Ateam Wellness：https://qiita.com/organizations/ateam-wellness

Ateam CommerceTech：https://qiita.com/organizations/ateam-commerce-tech

Qiita：https://qiita.com/organizations/qiita-inc

Establishment of “OSS Policy” and “OSS Guideline”

We established an “Open-source Software (hereafter OSS) Policy” to stipulate activities related to OSS as well as an “OSS Guideline” that details internal standards on July 1, 2020.

The “OSS Policy” is publicly available on the software development platform “GitHub”.

With this initiative, we support OSS -related activities so that our employees can improve their technological skills and develop their careers, which we believe will contribute to the software industry by boosting the development of OSS.

GitHubページ：https://ateam-dev.github.io/oss/POLICY

 

Other Technology-related Activities

We will continuously contribute to the development of the industry through various technology-related activities such as sponsorships of IT events and conferences, support for the engineering industry, giving speeches and presentations at technology-related events by our engineers, engineering information delivery, and more.