Rakuten Technology Conference 2015

On the opening of Rakuten Technology Conference 2015

That time of the year when you look into the glittering world is here again. That’s right: I’m talking about the Rakuten Technology Conference.
This year marks the ninth anniversary of the Rakuten Technology Conference which we have been hosting with your continuing support since 2007. Time sure flies when we’re having so much fun!

This yearly event is run by engineers, for engineers, and about engineers. Here at Rakuten, this event is planned, organized and operated by our own engineers. Every year, we prepare for this event by choosing a theme that we feel is impacting the lives of all engineers around the world.

In recent years, we have set the themes featuring the globalization of Japanese engineers and the Rakuten Group. For example, in one conference, we centered our focus around one core theme: Be prepared for the upheaval of Big Data, Smart Devices, Agile Development and the Internationalization of the Engineer’s Environment. In recent years, we have set the themes featuring the globalization of Japanese engineers and the Rakuten Group. For example, in one conference, we centered our focus around one core theme: Be prepared for the upheaval of Big Data, Smart Devices, Agile Development and the Internationalization of the Engineer’s Environment.

For another conference, we talked about no matter how big the world may seem to be, all big challenges can be overcome as long as you have great teams working on those problems.
Based on those experiences, we discovered our core values again. What’s important is that you always return to your core values and understand your passion as an engineer. Then, you need to understand that all engineers need to make the world their stage. Following this approach, you will find that all roads are paved with gold and you can achieve great, big things. So, we had the theme of “Sparkling Gold” last year.

Now, we are here: Our 9th Technology Conference. We now have a much diversified team with people from all corners of the world who work on a variety of services we deliver worldwide. Each of our engineers plays an important role in creating products for all of our users. With this in mind, we have decided to set the theme for this year: “Our Crimson, Your Kaleidoscope”.

This year, we moved our headquarters to our new building named “Crimson House”. What does the color “Crimson” mean to us? The color which we have used since the foundation of Rakuten represents ‘strong passion’. We use the name “House” because this is our new home: The house of strong passion along with great dreams. We believe that by combining our strong passion with your participation, we can achieve a kaleidoscope of dreams for you.

Engineers are always worried by so many challenges and they struggle with common, everyday issues and problems. These issues and problems pop up daily in business, development, testing and operations. At times, we have a tendency to look for powerful solutions to address these problems: a so-called veritable panacea or ‘Silver Bullet’ in spite of our own self interests. However, in each case, we may realize that there is no single solution to resolve all problems. In fact, there is no “Silver Bullet”. There is no answer outside. It’s the other way around: The answer can be found ‘inside’. Engineers always begin with Crimson: internal strong passion to solve problems in order to make the world a better place.

We are still in the ‘Age of the Internet Revolution’. All around us, the world is constantly changing. So many new services are being launched daily. From the small start-up venture, to the much larger companies, young engineers play a critical role in helping to bring these services to market. Engineers are inspired by other engineers. Each engineer takes one step forward with the dream of adding something new to the world. You develop diverse services with great passion and spark. Through your dedication, you inspire others to greatness. This is happening around the world and no one can stop it.
We hope to show brilliant and colorful shines by developing and providing services. And then, our Crimson House will be “the kaleidoscope” to you for sure.

Our Crimson, Your Kaleidoscope!

We will gather here at the Crimson House to make this a reality. We will connect our satellite venues from Sapporo, Sendai, Osaka and Fukuoka to all of us in Tokyo. We will even host activities with our team in Singapore. Last year, we made a decision to change the format of the presentations from lecture-style to something quite similar to the open-style TED talks. We plan on continuing with this format to foster brighter and intellectually stimulating talks.

We plan on picking services and technologies currently in the spotlight and we will focus on many topics which are of special interest with engineers around the world. The invited speakers from overseas will bring the presentations alive with excitement. Hot topics are artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning. Emerging start-ups with AI will take center stage. We’ll also include wearable device start-ups, IoT ventures, DevOPs engineers, OSS geeks and much, much more at the Crimson House.

This is going to be a very exciting time for all of us. Don’t forget we’re planning to invite many Rakuten featured speakers to present as well. Our Group companies are drawing more and more interest each year. Many people want to learn about diversity of women in engineering activities, the inside scoop of Rakuten DevOps supporting development, Rakuten’s infrastructure operations and how we handle millions of transactions. We’ll also have talks about the achievements of our data scientists, physics, economics, and much, much more. Our team from RIT will provide up-to-date research of their work. We would like to talk about how and what we are doing. Furthermore, we’re planning to have an experience-based “Hackathon” which will be of great interest to engineers.
Of course we will also be hosting the ever popular, “Lightning Talks”, so if you have a topic you want to share, please contact us at the email address on the website.

Please come and hear how our sessions will create an atmosphere of “Kaleidoscope” at the Crimson House and mesmerize you with our great insights while, at the same time, leaving you excitement and highly-motivated to do even great work after you leave. Together, we can do so much more to make the world a better place.

We are looking forward to seeing you.

Masaya Mori
Executive Committee Chair
Technology Conference 2015