Nozomu Yoshida

Google

Associate Customer Engineer at Google Cloud | Data Solutions & Technology Team | Full-Time | Apr 2023 - Present | Japan

Data Analytics, AI/ML, Cloud Computing, System/Architecture Design

• Support companies in all aspects of Google Cloud adoption, helping them accelerate their journey to Google Cloud and optimize their business and technical operations.

Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc.

R&D Engineer | Part-Time | May 2020 - Mar 2023 | Japan

Python, JavaScript (AngularJS), HTML, CSS

• Implemented one of the largest accessibility-friendly questionnaire websites as the main engineer where includes mouse tracking, VoiceOver, and Alt Text, conducted an in-depth web-based survey on online shopping and E-commerce for a total of 133 visually impaired people, and clarified serious issues among them (e.g., Difficulty in buying and selling goods with apps and in recognizing products’ images, textures, design, and size).
• Published research paper [3] and press release with Mercari, Inc., one of the world’s biggest flea market companies, and contributed to future research on accessibility, inclusivity, and diversity, particularly for visually impaired people, by sharing the thorough survey results and insights.

Rakuten Group, Inc.

Product Manager | Internship | Feb 2021 - Apr 2021 | Japan

User Research, Market Research, PRD, Usability Test

• Created a product concept starting market, personas, problem, to solution and competitor analysis; especially clarified the critical issue of current OTAs –the lack of end-to-end path confirmability of the hotel accessibility, by uncovering users' pain points from user research with nine aged and low-mobility people and validated the solution concept of new accessibility features that improved hotel-booking difficulty via OTA by usability tests.
• Lessons I learned: 1. Focus on 'issue' by finding the root cause from the user's deep pain points 2. keep thinking 'Why' on the product; be careful to build-trap. 3. Practical way of problem-solving to balance tech/business/UX sides by learning from other PdMs meetings and discussions.

📄 Intern report

iFive

Software Engineer | Part-Time | Oct 2017 - Mar 2020 | Japan

C# (Xamarin), Ruby (Ruby on Rails), HTML, CSS

• Developed cross-platform (iOS/Android) official news app ranked 8th in the productivity category in Google Play to make the university announcements accessible with smartphones for the first time, which 1500+ students and faculty and staffs use.
• Notably contributed in developments of function to analyze and parse HTML tags with regular expressions to retrieve the information from websites with C# (Xamarin) and Ruby.
• Won first place with 100,000JPY out of 9 teams in business model competition in Japan by providing issue-driven sustainable C2C solutions.
• Selected as the best company out of 12 companies in the university twice in three years by above-mentioned contributions to the university.

University of Tsukuba

Master of Informatics | Apr 2020 - Mar 2023 | Japan

Digital Nature Group, Advised by Prof. Yoichi Ochiai

University of British Columbia

EGC Program | Aug 2017 - Sep 2017 | Canada

EGC Program is an English practice program including global themes like: environment, cross-cultural communication, media, and technology.

Certificate

Iwate University

Bachelor of Engineering | Apr 2016 - Mar 2020 | Japan

Crossover Design Studio, Advised by Prof. Katsutsugu Matsuyama

ElectroMagnetic Guitar: Chord Playing Support System on Guitar by Electromagnets

Academic | Apr 2019 - Mar 2020 | First author | Two project members

⚠️ Problem:
It is difficult for beginner guitar players to play chord properly because of the complexity of left hand shape for string pressing on guitar.

💡 Solution:
We made ElectroMagnetic Guitar (EMG) with an original fretboard with controllable electromagnets mounted and attached it to the normal classic guitar. EMG ‘draws’ player’s left hand fingers with magnetic material attached toward proper chord positions on the fretboard. As a result of an informal user study, our EMG prototype offered sufficient magnetic force to keep chord form, though not enough power to properly draw fingering.

🎬 Short presentation | 🎬 Long presentation

A Picking Interface Seamlessly Connecting Passive and Active Performance on Guitar

Academic | Apr 2019 - Mar 2020 | First author | Two project members

⚠️ Problem:
There are limited ways to handle multimedia such as CG and music effects while playing musical instruments naturally.

💡 Solution:
We have designed an interface that allows a guitar player to manipulate another channel, such as the manipulation of visual effects, while playing the guitar and immediately reflects the performer's intentions without turning away from the guitar playing motion. We proposed a method to distinguish 3 picking states (Chord stroke/Single note/Non-picking) by sensing pressure on the pick and the rotation angle of the player’s index finger. Our brief experiment showed that our method can correctly identify the picking state with high accuracy.

🎬 Short presentation | 🎬 Long presentation

Auditory-centered Vocal Feedback System Using Solmization for Training Absolute Pitch without GUI

Academic | Jun 2020 - Sep 2021 | First author | Five project members

⚠️ Problem:
Most current training systems and applications for absolute pitch acquisition have focused on providing visual feedback. However, many people having perfect pitch describe that they hear music as words rather than envisioning visual notes.

💡 Solution:
This study proposes an auditory-centered training system using solmization to artificially acquire and train absolute pitch by providing vocal feedback of musical notes through a musician’s voice. Furthermore, our proposed system does not require a Graphical User Interface (GUI), in contrast to traditional training systems, such as tuners and the visualized guide melody of Karaoke. In an experiment with 10 participants, our system’s training with vocal feedback improved six non-potential ab- solute pitch users’ absolute pitch by approximately 25%, although extant system with visual feedback didn’t make an improvement.

Shokyu

Business | Dec 2020 - Present | Founder | Three project members

⚠️ Problem:
English speakers living outside of Japan have few opportunities to learn authentic Shodo from Japanese instructors. Plus, some of them have no access to Shodo tools such as blush, paper, ink, and underlay.

💡 Solution:
Shokyu provides opportunities for English speakers to learn calligraphy online while living abroad.

🔗 Official Website

Momentary English

Business | Dec 2020 - Present | Founder | Sole project

⚠️ Problem:
As a tendency of English skills, Japanese can read, write, and listen to some extent, but are not good at speaking. The problem is that the training to convey what you want to say instantly in English is not enough, and the English composition circuit is not built in the brain.

💡 Solution:
We have developed a website that allows training to instantly translate Japanese sentences into English by diverting the flash mental arithmetic method. By continuing this training, users can build an English composition circuit in the brain to tell what they want to convey smoothly in English. With Momentary English, you can efficiently train English speaking from your smartphone or computer, although there are already books for momentary English composition. Furthermore, the system of this website is applicable for other languages and other memorization subjects.

🔗 Official Website (Unpublished)

Professional Data Engineer

Issued by Google Cloud, Oct 2023

A Professional Data Engineer creates and manages robust data processing systems, including the ability to design, build, deploy, monitor, maintain, and secure data processing workloads.

Certificate

Associate Cloud Engneer

Issued by Google Cloud, July 2023

An Associate Cloud Engineer deploys applications, monitores operations, and manages enterprise solutions that leverage Google-managed or self-managed services on Google Cloud.

Certificate

Esaki Prize

University of Tsukuba Alumni Association, Mar 2023

Outstanding research achievements in graduates students

0.7%: 29 out of 4260 graduates, class of Apr 2023

Crest AIP Challenge

Funded by Japan Science and Technology Agency, Jun 2022

Research theme: Haptic and auditory presentation of chord notation to assist visually impaired performers

Private competition rate

1,000,000 JPY

Cloud Digital Leader

Issued by Google Cloud, Feb 2022

Certificate

Idea Award

Student Business Competition by General incorporated foundation Student support center, Dec 2021

Proposed whole-country-scalable barter IT solution that revitalizes local communities.

Private competition rate

100,000 JPY

📃 Winner's list

Second Prize

New Business Competition by North Japan Bank, Nov 2021

Proposed Edtech solution that realizes flexible Shodo learning online worldwide with affordable price.

7%: Top 2 out of 28 business plans

300,000 JPY

Shield

Kusakari Award

Iwate University, Mar 2020

An award given to outstanding CS students in Iwate University.

3%: 4 out of 119 CS students

Certificate | Comment

Grand Prize

Iwate University, Feb 2020

By achievements in improving access to official information for 1500+ people.

8%: 1 out of 13 companies

Certificate

Second Prize

Iwate University, Feb 2019

Enabled to browse on-campus info by negotiations with the security division.

20%: Top 2 out of 10 companies

Certificate

SIGGRAGPH Asia 2018 SV Program

ACM, Feb 2020

Managed and lead the top CG conference to success as a student staff.

30%: 60 out of over 200 applicants

Grand Prize

Iwate University, Feb 2018

By achievements in winning BMC and deployment of university’s first official app.

8%: 1 out of 12 companies

Certificate

Grand Prix

Ofunato Business Plan Competition 2017, Jan 2018

Proposed data-based barter IT solution that revitalizes local communities.

11%: 1 out of 9 teams

100,000 JPY

Certificate

TOEIC L&R 845

Japan, Nov 2017

Certificate

EIKEN Grade 1

Japan, Jul 2017

CEFR C1; Equivalent to IELTS 7.0 - 8.0 and TOEFL iBT 95 - 120

Certificate

ElectroMagnetic Guitar: Chord Playing Support System on Guitar by Electromagnets

International Workshop on Advanced Image Technology 2020 (IWAIT2020)

Best Paper Candidates (19%: 16 out of 84 accepted papers).

Nozomu Yoshida, Katsutsugu Matsuyama. ElectroMagnetic Guitar: Chord Playing Support System on Guitar by Electromagnets. In Proceeding of The International Workshop on Advanced Image Technology 2020. Paper No. 32 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2566284.

A Picking Interface Seamlessly Connecting Passive and Active Performance on Guitar.

International Workshop on Advanced Image Technology 2020 (IWAIT2020)

Nozomu Yoshida, Katsutsugu Matsuyama. 2020. A Picking Interface Seamlessly Connecting Passive and Active Performance on Guitar. In Proceeding of The International Workshop on Advanced Image Technology 2020. Paper No. 52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2566285.

Survey on the Current State of Accessibility for Visually-impaired People Using E-commerce in Japan.

Information Processing Society of Japan Research Report

Yoshiki Nagatani, Kazuki Takazawa, Nozomu Yoshida, Mariko Kobayashi, Kentaro Teramoto, KotaroOomori, Masaaki Sadasue, Akihisa Shitara, Koyomi Koabayashi, Misato Takahashi. Survey on the Current State of Accessibility for Visually-impaired People Using E-commerce in Japan. Information Processing Society of Japan Research Report. Vol.2020-AAC-14, No.3, pp.1-8 (2020). http://id.nii.ac.jp/1001/00208100.

Auditory-centered Vocal Feedback System Using Solmization for Training Absolute Pitch without GUI.

INTERACT 2021

Acceptance Rate: 27% (108 out of 400 papers)

Nozomu Yoshida, Kosaku Namikawa, Yusuke Koroyasu, Yoshiki Nagatani, Yoichi Ochiai. 2021. Auditory-centered Vocal Feedback System Using Solmization for Training Absolute Pitch without GUI. In Proceeding of INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12935, pp.3-9 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85610-6_1.

How Visually Impaired People Use Information Media and E-Commerce in Japan.

HCI International 2022

Yoshiki Nagatani, Kazuki Takazawa, Masaaki Sadasue, Mariko Kobayashi, Kentaro Teramoto, Nozomu Yoshida, Kotaro Oomori, Akihisa Shitara, Koyomi Kobayashi, Aiko Kuroda & Misato Takahashi. 2022. How Visually Impaired People Use Information Media and E-Commerce in Japan. HCI International 2022 Posters. HCII 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1580. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06417-3_74.

Psychological Distance and User Engagement in Online Exhibitions: Visualization of Moiré Patterns based on Electroencephalography Signals.

Frontiers in Psychology

Li, Jingjing, Ye Yang, Zhexin Zhang, Nozomu Yoshida, Vargas Meza, and Yoichi Ochiai. "Psychological Distance and User Engagement in Online Exhibitions: Visualization of Moiré Patterns based on Electroencephalography Signals." Frontiers in Psychology: 5342. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.954803.

Proposals from a business administration approach to achieve human-centered AI.

Japan Social Data Science Society Symposium 2023

Tokuaki Akagi, Manabu Ueda, Nozomu Yoshida, Daiki Miura. "Proposals from a business administration approach to achieve human-centered AI." Japan Social Data Science Society Symposium 2023. http://www.jsdss.org/event/961.