Author : haiero
Hello!
My name is @haiero from Advanced Technology Team.
On June 2, 2021, the Mercari Advanced Technology Team held the 3rd Israel Pitch Day, inviting four Israeli startups.
In this article, I would like to introduce our mission in the Advanced Technology Team and one of the measures to achieve it, Israel Pitch Day!
The mission of the Advanced Technology Team is to "lead continuous innovation with advanced technology". Based on this mission, we work together with our global team members in India, Germany, Indonesia and other countries.
We use our global network to research news and trends from around the world in order to discover new and exciting ways to take advantage of the diversity of technologies and solutions around the world.
One of the geographical areas that we research for new startups is Israel, which is known as an international startup powerhouse.
Why Israel?
Israel has a population of about 9.3 million, and it has invested heavily in IT education throughout its compulsory education system. As a result more than 1000 startups are being born every year, which is a very high number compared to its population.
It is one of the countries that have been attracting attention in recent years, with some of the world’s largest companies making acquisitions.
Mercari is also attracted a lot in Israel, where there are many such up-and-coming startup companies, to learn from them.
What is Israel Pitch Day?
Israel Pitch Day is a Mercari internal event where, in cooperation with the Economic Section of the Israeli Embassy, we learn about new ideas and solutions from Israeli startups that are creating products related to Mercari business.
The event has already been held three times, and each time we have invited many startup companies based on a different theme each year.
The themes are decided by the Advanced Technology Team from something that is trending, and is relevant to Mercari.
The themes so far have been:
- "Big data” and “E-Commerce"
- "Cybersecurity” and “E-Commerce", and
- "AI solutions for E-Commerce" and "Advanced Experience".
We select companies to attend the Pitch from a large list of companies, evaluating their ideas and relevance to Mercari.
Four companies participated in this year’s event, and we got to learn about a variety of solutions and services. These include remote assistance using AI and AR, and real-time support services using voice!
Each participating team gets 30 minutes for their PitchTime, where they will be presenting about their companies, issues they are working on, solutions, and services, along with a slot of Q&A.
Through this pitch, we learn about the company and their products, and evaluate if there are any areas where Mercari can work with them. We also use Slack to discuss more in-depth topics during the pitch
Summary
This year’s event was held completely online, with all participating companies and spectators participating online.
The time difference between Israel and Japan is 6 hours, so it was essential to coordinate the event with the time difference in mind.
Participants were actively engaged in discussions such as "If we were to incorporate this into Mercari, what types of situations could we incorporate it into?" and "Did Mercari have similar ideas?"
The Advanced Technology Team actively connects with and obtains information from various companies around the world.
To share this information within the company, we actively promote innovation within the company by holding regular internal events such as "Trendy Trend Coffee," another internal event where you can casually learn about business and technology trends around the world that are happening outside of Mercari in 30 minutes!
At Mercari, internal events and study groups have always been active, and many members are constantly learning new things.
I think Mercari is a very attractive environment as a place for personal growth.
If you’re interested, please feel free to contact me!
