*This is a machine-translated text of the original article.

On April 1, ANA Holdings Inc announced the launch of avatarin Inc, a company for building social infrastructure with the help of avatar technology being developed at its Digital Design Lab.

While it is ANA’s first start-up company, the avatar project’s leader Akira Fukabori will serve as CEO, and Kevin Kajitani will step in as COO.


*From left to right: external director Yoshiaki Tsuda, CEO Akira Fukabori, and COO Kevin Kajitani

In October 2016, ANA Holdings Inc’s Digital Design Lab was awarded the Grand Prix in a competition sponsored by XPdRIZE Foundation,　which inspired the company to launch “ANA AVATAR XPRIZE”, an international competition for high-performance avatar developers.

In 2018, we formally launched the “Avatar Project” and conducted demonstration experiments on various avatars in industry, government, and academia. At the same time, we announced the “ANA AVATAR VISION” which represents the vision for the social infrastructures of avatars for the future.

In 2019, the company began preparations for commercialization at the Avatar Preparation Office, and this time it decided to establish an operating company.

Going forward, the company will actively recruit experts from around the world and accelerate the development of new markets by further strengthening its avatar services, technology and research, partner collaboration, and external financing.

In response to the new coronavirus, the company will prioritize its proprietary propagation-type communication avatar “newme” for medical facilities that require remote communication.

In the future, avatar will be used as a social infrastructure to develop services that can be used for various purposes such as medical care, nursing, education, shopping, viewing, and tourism.

Original Text: https://ampmedia.jp/2020/04/01/ana-22/