Rakuten Technology Conference 2022

RTC 2022 - TECH & GREEN

The annual Rakuten Technology Conference is back for the 14th year with the theme “Tech & Green”. More than 1,000 engineers, from Rakuten and other companies, are expected to attend. If you are excited about the future and the latest technology trends, this is the must-attend conference of the year.

- Talks and panels led by TECH Leaders and experts across a range of topics, including Data, AI, Mobile Network and FinTech.

- Fireside chat, roundtables, networking areas, and an after-party will bring liven the event and an opportunity to interact with the speakers and guests.

- Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Your family can also enjoy future technologies at the Kids’ Park.

TIMETABLE

Download

19th NOV	Main Stage 4F Asakai Theater	Track A 4F Conference Room	Track B 16F Lecture Hall
11.00 am		Boosting cybersecurity for the future Lancine Sako, Masaaki Tashiro	Data Platform for advanced data analytics Takumi Zamami, Lei Ai
11.15	The Future Of Mobile Networks Sharad Sriwastawa
11.30	The Future Of Mobile Networks Sharad Sriwastawa	Rakuten Ichiba's latest architecture refinement Initiatives - Mall X Makoto Kawamura, Mahmoud Ezzat	Rakuten Observability "SixthSense" Amit Srivastava, Vasu Kesiraju
11.45
12.00 pm	Opening Remark Yasufumi Hirai	Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming Track A 4F Conference Room 12.15-01.00 Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming	Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming Track A 4F Conference Room 12.15-01.00 Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming
12.15	Keynote Speech Mickey Mikitani
12.30
12.45
01.00 pm
01.15	The Secret of Product Management - Learning from Slack Case Studies Tamar Yehoshua (CPO, Slack),Tatsuya Kinugawa	Building NFT Marketplace with Rakuten Global Team Track A 4F Conference Room 01.15-01.45 Building NFT Marketplace with Rakuten Global Team Marty Bell, Umesh DC, Sathiyabal Ravindran , Hajime Nishinomiya	Introduction of digitalization initiatives for Rakuten Insurance Business Isamu Noma, Yukimoto Naito
01.30
01.45
02.00 pm	Shaping the Future of Computing Chris Wright (CTO, RedHat), Rohit Dewan	Rakuten’s Recommendation and Personalization Platform Phuc Le	Gora Migration Tactics and Evolution Cui Taixing
02.15			Gora Migration Tactics and Evolution Cui Taixing
02.30
02.45	AI: The Future of Software Cassie Kozyrkov (Chief Decision Scientist, Google), Ting Cai, Ewa Szymanska	What makes software “green”? Yury Leonychev	Overview of Cassandra usage in Search Ambar Hegde
03.00 pm		What makes software “green”? Yury Leonychev	Overview of Cassandra usage in Search Ambar Hegde
03.15
03.30		Data visualization of cashless transaction and nationwide payment terminal network Daigo Hayasaka, Wataru Suzukake	Ad Tech in Rakuten Hiroaki Kikuchi, Toshiaki Ishibashi, Jaemin Shim, Jinyong Kim
03.45	Future Cloud Discussion Yoichi Takizawa (AWS), Hawk Yasuhara (GCP), Tadashi Okazaki (MS), Akihito Kurozumi, Hironori Yoshida
04.00 pm		Reducing the World's Carbon Footprint with Rakuten Research & TECH Kyle Mede	Rakuten Farm IoT Initiatives Yuki Ichikawa
04.15			Rakuten Farm IoT Initiatives Yuki Ichikawa
04.30
04.45	Rakuten Technology Excellence Award Main Stage 4F Asakai Theater 04.45-06.00 Rakuten Technology Excellence Award
05.00 pm
05.15
05.30
05.45
06.00 pm

19th NOV

Main Stage

4F Asakai Theater

Track A

4F Conference Room

Track B

16F Lecture Hall

11.00am to 12.00pm

11.15 - 11.45

The Future Of Mobile Networks

Sharad Sriwastawa

11.00 - 11.30

Boosting cybersecurity for the future

Lancine Sako, Masaaki Tashiro

11.30 - 12.00

Rakuten Ichiba's latest architecture refinement Initiatives - Mall X

Makoto Kawamura, Mahmoud Ezzat

11.00 - 11.30

Data Platform for advanced data analytics

Takumi Zamami, Lei Ai

11.30 - 12.00

Rakuten Observability "SixthSense"

Amit Srivastava, Vasu Kesiraju

12.00pm to 01.00pm

12.00 - 12.15

Opening Remark

Yasufumi Hirai

12.15 - 01.00

Keynote Speech

Mickey Mikitani

12.15 - 01.00

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

12.15 - 01.00

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

01.15pm to 01.45pm

01.15 - 01.45

The Secret of Product Management - Learning from Slack Case Studies

Tamar Yehoshua (CPO, Slack),Tatsuya Kinugawa

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01.15 - 01.45

Building NFT Marketplace with Rakuten Global Team

Marty Bell

01.15 - 01.45

Introduction of digitalization initiatives for Rakuten Insurance Business

Isamu Noma, Yukimoto Naito

02.00pm to 02.30pm

02.00 - 02.30

Shaping the Future of Computing

Chris Wright (CTO, RedHat), Rohit Dewan

02.00 - 02.30

Rakuten’s Recommendation and Personalization Platform

Phuc Le

02.00 - 02.30

Gora Migration Tactics and Evolution

Cui Taixing

02.45pm to 03.30pm

02.45 - 03.30

AI: The Future of Software

Cassie Kozyrkov (Chief Decision Scientist, Google), Ting Cai, Ewa Szymanska

02.45 - 03.15

What makes software “green”?

Yury Leonychev

02.45 - 03.15

Overview of Cassandra usage in Search

Ambar Hegde

03.30pm to 04:30pm

03.45 - 04.30

Future Cloud Discussion

Yoichi Takizawa (AWS), Hawk Yasuhara (GCP), Tadashi Okazaki (MS), Akihito Kurozumi, Hironori Yoshida

03.30 - 04.00

Data visualization of cashless transaction and nationwide payment terminal network

Daigo Hayasaka, Wataru Suzukake

04.00 - 04.30

Reducing the World's Carbon Footprint with Rakuten Research & TECH

Kyle Mede

03.30 - 04.00

Ad Tech in Rakuten

Hiroaki Kikuchi, Toshiaki Ishibashi, Jaemin Shim, Jinyong Kim

04.00 - 04.30

Rakuten Farm IoT Initiatives

Yuki Ichikawa

04.45pm to 06.00pm

04.45 - 06.00

Rakuten Technology Excellence Award

Timetable

19th NOVEMBER Download

11.15 am to 11.45 am

11.15 - 11.45

The Future Of Mobile Networks

Sharad Sriwastawa

12.00 pm to 01.00 pm

12.00 - 12.15

Opening Remark

Yasufumi Hirai

12.15 - 01.00

Keynote Speech

Mickey Mikitani

01.15 pm to 01.45 pm

01.15 - 01.45

The Secret of Product Management - Learning from Slack Case Studies

Tamar Yehoshua (CPO, Slack),Tatsuya Kinugawa

02.00 pm to 02.30 pm

02.00 - 02.30

Shaping the Future of Computing

Chris Wright (CTO, RedHat), Rohit Dewan

02.45 pm to 03.30 pm

02.45 - 03.30

AI: The Future of Software

Cassie Kozyrkov (Chief Decision Scientist, Google), Ting Cai, Ewa Szymanska

03.30 pm to 04.30 pm

03.45 - 04.30

Future Cloud Discussion

Yoichi Takizawa (AWS), Hawk Yasuhara (GCP), Tadashi Okazaki (MS), Akihito Kurozumi, Hironori Yoshida

04.45 pm to 06.00 pm

04.45 - 06.00

Rakuten Technology Excellence Award

11.00 am to 12.00 pm

11.00 - 11.30

Boosting cybersecurity for the future

Lancine Sako, Masaaki Tashiro

11.30 - 12.00

Rakuten Ichiba's latest architecture refinement Initiatives - Mall X

Makoto Kawamura, Mahmoud Ezzat

12.15 pm to 01.00 pm

12.15 - 12.30

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

12.30 - 01.00

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

01.15 pm to 01.45 pm

01.15 - 01.45

Building NFT Marketplace with Rakuten Global Team

Marty Bell, Umesh DC, Sathiyabal Ravindran , Hajime Nishinomiya

02.00 pm to 02.30 pm

02.00 - 02.30

Rakuten’s Recommendation and Personalization Platform

Phuc Le

02.45 pm to 03.30 pm

02.45 - 03.15

What makes software “green”?

Yury Leonychev

03.30 pm to 04.30 pm

03.30 - 04.00

Data visualization of cashless transaction and nationwide payment terminal network

Daigo Hayasaka, Wataru Suzukake

04.00 - 04.30

Reducing the World's Carbon Footprint with Rakuten Research & TECH

Kyle Mede

04.45 pm to 06.00 pm

04.45 - 06.00

Rakuten Technology Excellence Award

11.00 am to 12.00 pm

11.00 - 11.30

Data Platform for advanced data analytics

Takumi Zamami, Lei Ai

11.30 - 12.00

Rakuten Observability "SixthSense"

Amit Srivastava, Vasu Kesiraju

12.15 pm to 01.00 pm

12.15 - 12.30

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

12.30 - 01.00

Keynote and Executive Talk Live Streaming

01.15 pm to 01.45 pm

01.15 - 01.45

Introduction of digitalization initiatives for Rakuten Insurance Business

Isamu Noma, Yukimoto Naito

02.00 pm to 02.30 pm

02.00 - 02.30

Gora Migration Tactics and Evolution

Cui Taixing

02.45 pm to 03.30 pm

02.45 - 03.15

Overview of Cassandra usage in Search

Ambar Hegde

03.30 pm to 04.30 pm

03.30 - 04.00

Ad Tech in Rakuten

Hiroaki Kikuchi, Toshiaki Ishibashi, Jaemin Shim, Jinyong Kim

04.00 - 04.30

Rakuten Farm IoT Initiatives

Yuki Ichikawa

04.45 pm to 06.00 pm

04.45 - 06.00

Rakuten Technology Excellence Award

EVENT VENUE

RAKUTEN CRIMSON HOUSE,

1-14-1 Tamagawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-0094

DIRECTIONS

Rakuten Crimson House :
4 minutes walk from Futako Tamagawa Station

Event Live Stream Venue:

Rakuten Crimson House Japan Regional office x 4,
Global Hub (India, China, Singapore and US)

Yasufumi Hirai

Group Executive Vice President, CIO & CISO, Rakuten Group

Yasufumi (Yasu) Hirai is Group Executive Vice President, CIO and CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) of Rakuten Group, Inc. a leader in internet services and global innovation headquartered in Japan. In his role as CIO and CISO, Hirai is responsible forthe evolution of Rakuten ecosystem services, as well as managing group-wide IT infrastructure and information security governance.Hirai’s business career started with IBM Japan Ltd. in 1983 and he spent 20 years at IBM both in Japan and New York, taking on a variety of leadership roles including Director, Telecommunications Business Unit and Vice President of Software Group. Prior to joining Rakuten, Hirai served as Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems, Inc. and President and General Manager of Cisco Systems G.K., responsible for management of its entire Japan operations.He also served as Senior Managing Executive Officer for Microsoft Japan, with responsibility for its enterprise business.He is currently Advisor of the Japan Associationof New Economy (JANE), Board MemberofJapan Institute of Information Technology, and Director of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Hirai is a graduate of the Facultyof Science, Kyushu University.

Ting Cai

Chief Data Officer, Group Senior Managing Executive Officer, Rakuten Group

Ting Cai is a senior technology executive who is passionate about creating products and technologies that users love. He has built and grown a number of successful products across search, commerce and network communications. At Rakuten, Ting is the Chief Data Officer and Group Senior Managing Executive Officer of the Technology Services Division. He is responsible for analytics, catalog, search, recommendation, marketing and ads optimization, and technology incubation as well as research at Rakuten Institute of Technology. Prior to Rakuten, Ting served as Google’s Senior Director for Geo Search and Assistant, where he was responsible for billions of local queries on Google Search, Map and Assistant. Before Google, Ting was the General Manager for the News & Feeds team at Microsoft. His team created the newsfeed on Bing and Edge with the best machine learning technologies and editors around the world. He led the Search and Speech in the Search Technology Center Asia where the team was responsible for providing a variety of critical services on news search, multimedia search, ranking, mobile apps, speech recognition and text to speech. Ting loves shopping and played various leadership roles in Bing Cashback and Bing Shopping in the US and in Europe. Ting started his career as a software engineer in network communications, worked on kernel drivers in Windows and created network protocols at Microsoft and at a startup, Terabeam Networks. Ting graduated from Dartmouth College with a master’s degree in Computer Science, and he holds an MBA from the University of Washington. He is a member of the Guarini Board of Advisors at Dartmouth College. He holds several patents on user understanding, content recommendation, network communication and secure hashing algorithm

Akihito Kurozumi

Group Senior Managing Executive Officer, Technology Platforms Division, Rakuten Group

Akihito Kurozumi serves as Group Senior Managing Executive Officer of Rakuten Group, Inc., a leader in internet services and global innovation headquartered in Japan. Kurozumi started his business career at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) in 1997 where he spent 4 years. He joined Rakuten in 2002, primarily working in the Development Division. He was appointed to the position of Executive Officer in 2008, and in 2013 he moved to the U.S. to take on the role of Vice President of Rakuten USA. After returning to Japan, Kurozumi was appointed Senior Executive Officer in 2021 and then Senior Managing Executive Officer in 2022 (current position). Currently, he also serves as the leader of the Technology Platform Division and Director of the Commerce Company Technology Supervisory Department.

Sharad Sriwastawa

Group Managing Executive Officer, CTO of Rakuten Mobile

Sharad Sriwastawa is a Group Managing Executive Officer of Rakuten Group, Inc. and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Rakuten Mobile, Inc. He joined Rakuten Mobile in September 2018, and took up the role of CTO in March 2022. In this role, Sriwastawa is responsible for the development and operation Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized, cloud native, Open RAN-based mobile network. Prior to the CTO Role, Sriwastawa served as Head of Connectivity Platforms, where he took on the challenge of building the world’s first cloud native RAN. Sriwastawa has a long history in the telecom industry, managing and leading landmark projects across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the US and Europe for almost 30 years. Prior to joining Rakuten Mobile, Sriwastawa served as Vice President of Airspan Networks Holdings Inc., CTO of Phimetrics Technologies, and as National Head of Reliance 3G. His career started at Siemens Public Communications Network Ltd in 1995, where he was involved in building India's first mobile network.

Rohit Dewan

Executive Officer, Director, Cloud Platform Supervisory Department, Rakuten Group

Executive Officer at Rakuten Group leading a global team across the Americas, Europe, and Asia in a multifaceted role as director of our global core platforms group which includes our private cloud, product catalog, data platform and analytics.

Ewa Szymanska

Executive Officer, Global Head of Rakuten Institute of Technology

Ewa Szymanska leads development of new technologies as the Global Head of Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT) and Executive Officer of Technology Services Division at Rakuten Inc. She is responsible for bridging academic research with business applications to drive innovation at Rakuten and to deliver novel solutions utilizing latest findings in computer vision, natural language processing, automatic speech recognition, and advanced customer analytics, across RIT offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Bengaluru, Paris, Boston, and San Mateo.

TATSUYA KINUGAWA

Executive Officer, Director, Ecosystem Platform Supervisory Department, Rakuten Group

Executive Officer of Rakuten Group, Inc Director, Ecosystem Platform Supervisory Department Japanese and English bilingual development department manager of more than 20 start-up to middle size services and platforms. 7 years of product and project management experience in Internet Service Industry. 4 years of organization management experience up to 200 engineers and product managers.

Hironori Yoshida

General Manager, Infrastructure Services Department, Technology Platforms Division, Rakuten Group

Hironori Yoshida started his career as a system administrator at Linux, after graduating from Kyoto University with a major in Science. He engaged in enhancements of supercomputer systems, on-premise servers and network systems at the National Institute for Environmental Studies. He joined Rakuten Group, Inc. back in April 2008 and managed the Application Engineer Development team in the System Development Department for Rakuten GORA and Rakuten International EC services. From April 2016, he managed Ichiba’s Infrastructure Team as a Senior Manager. In September 2021, he was assigned as a Director for Data Centers & Cloud Infrastructure.

Hawk Yasuhara

Head of Solution & Technology Engineering - Infrastructure & Application modernization, Google Cloud

Hawk, Yasuhara joined Google in 2019 and has 18 years of IT industry experience. He is leading Infrastructure and Application modernization solutions in Google Cloud Japan and supporting the customers to modernize their workload with Google Cloud products / services to improve agility and flexibility of their IT capabilities. Prior to join the Google, Toshitaka worked at a global consulting firm to support IT system optimization with company merger and mainframe modernization. And also worked in Singapore at a company in the manufacturing industry to lead data center migration and modernization as a manager. Through a deep understanding of enterprise IT environment and cloud native solutions , passionate about supporting the customer to transform by themselves by power of IT.

Tadashi Okazaki

Managing Executive Officer, GM Cloud & Solution Unit, Microsoft Japan

Tadashi Okazaki is Managing Executive Officer and the head of Cloud & Solutions Business Division in Microsoft. After working as the head of a major system integrator and a foreign vendor's architect team, he had been in charge of technology at Amazon Web Services Japan G.K., overseeing the technical teams of enterprises, Internet service startups and partners from 2015 to 2022. In August 2022 he joined Microsoft Japan, utilizing his background as a consultant, he also promotes activities to enlighten and spread the latest technologies such as cloud, AI, IoT and metaverse to customers from a management perspective as well as technology.

Yoichi Takizawa

Principal Solution Architect, General Manager, Public Sector Technology Management Division, Amazon Web Services Japan, Inc.

After working as an architect, project manager, and security/internal control consultant for large-scale enterprise systems at a major system integrator in Japan, he led the Business Promotion and Technology Development Team using AWS. In 2014, he joined AWS Japan and was the first solution architect for the financial industry in the country. In 2015, he became the General Manager of the Enterprise Solution Architect team. From 2019, as General Manager of the Specialist Solutions Architect team, he supported the transformation of companies through large-scale migrations and modernization. From 2021, he has been supporting innovation with a focus on Japanese government and public customers. As a METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) Advisor Committee Member on the Management Criteria Working Group, related to the Security Evaluation of Cloud Services, he was involved in the development of management criteria for ISMAP (The Information System Security Management and Assessment Program).

Lancine Sako

Manager, Solution Architecture, CrowdStrike Japan K.K

Sako Lancine has more than 10 years of experience in cyber security in Japan, with 8 years focused on endpoint security. He has expertise with technologies like Networking, Web Security, Web Application Firewall (WAF), SSL VPN, and more.
Sako joined CrowdStrike Japan in 2018 as the first sales engineer. He was employee number 2 after the company was formally established in Japan. Since then, Sako has been engaged in various pre-sales activities, evangelizing and introducing the CrowdStrike Falcon technology portfolio to Japanese enterprises and government organizations. In addition to Japanese, Sako speaks multiple languages such as English, French, and German to support Crowdstrike customers’ global expansion and communication in an international environment.

Masaaki Tashiro

Senior Manager, Rakuten-CERT Section, Cyber Security Defense Department, Rakuten Group

Masaaki Tashiro is a Blue Team manager, cyber crime analyst, and vice representative of Rakuten-CERT. After joining Rakuten in 2012, his main role is developing the new security areas in the company, including establishing the private SOC (Rakuten SOC) in India, Digital Forensic team and Cyber Threat Intelligence team to enable 360-degree security monitoring and response. Recent years he has engaged in continuous fight against cyber attacks and cyber crimes as an incident handler in Cyber Security Defense Department and Rakuten-CERT, involved in almost all of security investigations in the company. Before Rakuten, he worked as a network and security analyst in payment processing company TSYS Japan, and ITOCHU Techno Solutions. CISSP, GMON.

Makoto Kawamura

Vice General Manager, EC Marketplace Development Department, Commerce Company, Rakuten Group

As Vice General Manager of EC Marketplace Development Department, Makoto is responsible for Rakuten Ichiba’s architecture and driving its revolution (for most of online part).
Prior to joining Rakuten, he was taking the role of CIO/CTO of start-up and director of software architecture in a large MNC.

MAHMOUD EZZATi

Manager, Commerce Company Technology Supervisory Department, Rakuten Group

Mahmoud Ezzat has joined Rakuten in 2015 and he has been working with several teams building e-commerce applications. He is now focusing on building a new generation of e-commerce solutions to empower shopper-facing applications in Rakuten Ichiba and improve Ichiba customers’ experience.

Marty Bell

Architect, Blockchain Lab Department, Rakuten Marketing Europe Limited

Marty has been working in the blockchain space since 2014 when he joined a startup developing a Payment Acceptance platform for Bitcoin. Prior to that Marty held architect roles in payments for Visa/CyberSource and in banking for HBoS/Lloyds a UK banking group. Marty was a founding member of Rakuten's Blockchain Lab that was created in 2016 to look at blockchain technology and how it could be utilised within Rakuten. With the rest of the team Marty has contributed to developing services to integrate with external cryptocurrency networks for Rakuten Wallet and internal blockchain / digital asset capabilities that are used by Rakuten NFT in Japan and Rakuten Europe.

Umesh DC

Architect, Entertainment Service Development Department, Rakuten India Enterprise Private Limited

Umesh joined Rakuten in 2018, and has been working as a technical Architect for Rakuten NFT Marketplace and Rakuten Tickets projects. In the past, he was primarily a python developer with a passion towards DevOps and cloud technologies. His current focus is in designing high-performance, scalable, maintainable and cloud-ready web applications.

Sathiyabal Ravindran

Group Program Manager, Entertainment Service Development Department, Rakuten India Enterprise Private Limited

Sathiyabal is a Technical and Program Manager who values dedication, service, and excellence. He has over 10 years of experience in KPIT and HCL Technologies prior to Rakuten, working with individuals and organizations to amplify their products and services so they can make an influential impact on the world. Sathiyabal played a critical role in the launch of the NFT marketplace service “Rakuten NFT” as a Group Program Manager.

Hajime Nishinomiya

Manager, Blockchain Technology Department, Rakuten Group

Since November 2016, Hajime has been working to drive blockchain and cryptocurrency utilization in Rakuten as a business developer, planner, and producer in Rakuten Blockchain Lab, which is a development team that specializes in blockchain technology. He contributed to multiple projects in Rakuten like the cryptocurrency exchange service “Rakuten Wallet”, the NFT marketplace service “Rakuten NFT”, and many production or Proof-of-Concept projects.

Phuc Le

Senior Data Scientist, Personalization & Merchandizing Department, Rakuten Group

Phuc Le is a Senior Data Scientist at AI Product Supervisory Department of Rakuten Group Inc. He got his PhD. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 2012 and his thesis was about Quantum Computation. In 2010, he was awarded the Young Researcher Award from IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, Japan Chapter for his works on extending Image Processing on Quantum Computers. From 2012 to 2015, he worked for NetMile Inc. as a full-stack engineer where he helped to build a whole recommendation system for affiliate advertising from scratch for the company. Since 2015, he has worked on various large-scaled recommendation systems for many services both in Japan and abroad of Rakuten Group Inc. He also has several patents on recommendation system domains.

Yury Leonychev

Vice Senior Manager, Technology Platforms Office, Rakuten Group

Yury started his career in IT around 15 years ago with a strong focus on information security. He worked on architecture improvements for the authentication and authorization platform at Yandex, which had hundreds of millions of users. He joined Rakuten’s Membership Platform Department back in 2015, where he built SRE processes for membership services. In 2021, he became a member of the Technical Program Office, focusing on improving the architecture of our large-scale horizontal projects to provide fast and secure services for Rakuten Group customers as well as improving the security and efficiency of platforms used by all Rakuten Group business units.

Daigo Hayasaka

Manager, Cross Service Development Department, FinTech Group Company, Rakuten Group

Daigo Hayasaka is a data enthusiast who are working as a product manager and also a manager of Data Service group in Rakuten Payment Inc. He started his career in MUFG Bank, Ltd. and spent 6 years as a project manager, leading a data pipeline and DWH development for credit risk management. After he joined Rakuten Group in 2019, while involved in various projects as a product manager, he is also responsible for data collecting/analytics/visualization of Rakuten Payment services such as Rakuten Pay, Rakuten Point Card or Edy and promoting data-driven culture in the company.

Wataru Suzukake

Senior Manager, Device Platform Department, FinTech Group Company, Rakuten Group

Joined Rakuten Group at 2010, and having experience for payment service development and operation, and product management in cashless industry. Main area of expertise is hardware product management such as payment terminal.

Kyle Mede

Vice Manager, Rakuten Institute of Technology

Kyle manages multiple teams in the Rakuten Institute of Technology, responsible for projects and initiatives in Data Science, Research and Big Data. Prior to joining Rakuten he completed both a Master of Science and a PhD at The University of Tokyo. During his academic career he conducted research in 5 countries specializing for over 7 years on the development of scientific software for the fields of Astrophysics and Oceanography.

Takumi Zamami

Vice General Manager, Data Platform Department, Rakuten Group

Takumi started his career at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC. after graduating from Waseda University. As a consultant, he was involved in projects supporting business development for a major manufacturing company, planning energy strategy for the government, designing an HR system for an educational company, and supporting department development for an e-commerce company. He also built and operated a data platform, collecting data, applying AI and ML, and was in charge of business utilization at an e-commerce company. In 2021, he joined Rakuten Group, Inc., and recently became the Vice General Manager of the Data Platform Department.

Lei Ai

Vice Senior Manager, Data Platform Development Section, Rakuten Group

Lei joined Rakuten in 2018 and has been working as a system architect for Rakuten Data Platform system. He worked in designing, implementing and architecting distributed systems for big data. He has over 16 years of experience working in\ different industries including finance, telecom, big-data, e-commerce and distributed system solutions.

Amit Srivastava

Vice President, Rakuten India Enterprise Private Limited

Amit is the Go-to-Market leader at Rakuten India. He heads the Rakuten SixthSense business and is responsible for the strategy, revenue, and branding of Rakuten SixthSense globally. With over 22 years of experience across sales leadership, business unit setup, technology sales, and strategic planning, Amit actively engage with product and engineering teams to ideate, innovate, and systemize to bring cutting-edge enterprise products to the market under the Rakuten SixthSense brand. Before Rakuten, Amit worked with AppDynamics, CA Technologies, Dell Technologies, Fujitsu, COLT, and NIIT in various customer-facing roles, as a tech advisor, sales, and sales leader.

Vasu Kesiraju

Product Director, Rakuten India Products & Services Department, Rakuten Group

Aprising & dynamic professional with over 15 years of experience in building enterprise grade products. He currently heads the Product Management for Rakuten SixthSense, however he is a developer by heart and loves to indulge in a technical conversation. He has worked with sustantial number of customer & partners from diverse industry domain including Automotive, Consumer Products, Financial Services, Energy Resources, Sports & Entertainment. Outside work he is a passionate Table Tennis player and big fan of Tomokazu Harimoto & Jun Mizutani.

Isamu Noma

Executive Officer, Rakuten General Insurance, Rakuten Group

Isamu Noma is the CIO, CISO, Executive Officer and Manager of Information Technology in Rakuten General Insurance from 2021. Prior to joining Rakuten, he had served as IT Innovation Head of Insurance Holding company, and Head of IT strategy Planning of some insurance companies. He is an expert on Insurance IT.

Cui Taixing

Manager of Golf API Platform Group, Leisure Product Department, Commerce Company, Rakuten Group

Manager of Golf API Platform Group in Rakuten, who is responsible for managing GORA API Platform Group since June 2019. Cui joined Rakuten in 2011 as new grad, and experienced a lot of different services and platforms in Rakuten as Application engineer.

Ambar Hegde

Assistant Manager, Findability Department, Rakuten Group

Ambar has worked on building Search and Analytics platforms for more than 15 years. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer in the Search Platform Group at Rakuten. Before joining Rakuten in 2013, he worked at Nokia and Yahoo!.

Hiroaki Kikuchi

General Manager, Ad Solutions and Insight Development Department, Global Ad Division, Rakuten Group

Experienced in R&D of machine learning solutions and software development especially for information retrieval, text analytics and natural language processing related service and products. Joined Rakuten Group, Inc. in 2022 and currently in charge of product development for advertising media services, DX and marketing research solutions.

Toshiaki Ishibashi

Vice Senior Manager, Ad Product Development Department, Global Ad Division, Rakuten Group

After developing a smartphone ad network at Advertising Platformer, joined ScaleOut inc. Responsible for development/operation of ScaleOut DSP and Ad Generation. Acquired by KDDI group in 2013, experienced a merger of three companies (changed company name to Supership Co., Ltd.) in 2015. At Supership, I continue to be in charge of the development and operation of the advertising system as the CTO of the advertising business. Joined Rakuten, Inc. (now Rakuten Group, Inc.) in 2018. Promotes the development of a global advertising platform.

Jaemin Shim

Vice Senior Manager, Technology Management Section, Ad Technology Management Department_SG, Rakuten Group

After graduating from a computer science master course in Japan, Over 20 years of engineering experience in multiple industries including banking, cards, distribution, and travel Specialized knowledge and expertise in infrastructure and databases. I joined Rakuten in 2012 as an infrastructure/database lead, and since 2015 I've been working as an architect lead of the CoE team of my current organization. In the role of Vice Senior Manager for the CoE team, I am responsible for all kinds of tech-related initiatives and issues within our organization.

Jinyong Kim

Vice General Manager, Ad Product Development Department, Global Ad Division, Rakuten Group

Having 25 years of IT engineering exeprience in various tech fields like Microsoft Japan, Matsui Securities, Mizuho Trust Bank, NEC, NTT Communications, Rakuten. Joined Rakuten in 2012, switching career-path from engineer to manager who has been focusing on horizontal tech expert functions having Architect/DevOps/QA.

Yuki Ichikawa

Product Manager, Incubation Service Development Department, Investment & Incubation Company, Rakuten Group

Experienced web application development in various industries such as EC, Retail, Finance and Marketing research. Joined Rakuten, Inc. in 2009. currently in charge of product manager for smart farm services.

Yukimoto Naito

CIO and CISO, Rakuten Insurance Holdings and Rakuten Life Insurance

He is concurrently in charge of CIO, CISO for Rakuten Insurance Holdings and Rakuten Life Insurance, leading entire technology team for the Rakuten insurance business.
He joined Rakuten Group in 2020, and previously worked in a global IT company as a partner of the service and consulting department.
He is SME of project management who has many experiences managing large-scale projects in various industries.

TECH & GREEN

NOVEMBER 19TH, 2022

RTC 2022 - TECH & GREEN

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

MICKEY MIKITANI

TAMAR YEHOSHUA

CASSIE KOZYRKOV

CHRIS WRIGHT

MICKEY MIKITANI

TAMAR YEHOSHUA

CASSIE KOZYRKOV

CHRIS WRIGHT