KOSEN
STARTUPAUTOMATES INSTRUMENT INSPECTION
Kosen, or institutes of technology, form an educational

system particular to Japan that provides university-level
vocational education to students once they graduate fromjunior high school. A startup that was launched at one such
school is now implementing digital transformation at
workplaces in many industries.
Industrial worksites use a dizzying mix of analog
and digital instruments: thermometers, pressuregauges, power meters, water meters, flow meters, andso forth. Those instruments require visual checks andinspections, with workers in many cases needing toexamine them numerous times a day, and sometimes
late at night or on holidays.
IntegrAI is a startup working on applying digital

Sodoo and his teamentered KOSEN-DCONwith the NITNC
Pre-Lab Team and won
first prize for theirproduct MATERAI, theprototype for IntegrAI.

transformation (DX) to that burdensome task. The
company has developed a system that automates data
recordings and provides notifications of anomalies.
It does so by using AI to read numerical values fromvideo footage provided by cameras mounted to theinstruments. The startup was founded by a teacherand Mongolian international students at the National
Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College (NITNC,IntegrAI’s founding members.
From left: founder Odonchimed
Sodtavilan, representative director
and NITNC teacher YANO
Shohei, and CEO Bayarbat
Nomunbayasgalant.

called “Nagaoka Kosen” for short in Japanese).
Kosen, or institutes of technology, form an
educational system particular to Japan whose
purpose is to train engineers with practical andcreative skills. The schools accept junior high school
graduates and provide a professional education via a
five-year program equivalent to senior high school
and undergraduate engineering courses. There were
57 public and private kosen in Japan as of March
2023. Each school focuses on its own specialty incooperation with its local community.
Being located in Niigata Prefecture in northcentral Japan means that NITNC is surrounded bya thriving agro-industrial area. The school carries out
many projects to solve local companies’ technologicalproblems, and students join those projects from theirfirst year in the school. The idea behind IntegrAI’s
product came from a company president who foundchecking instruments to be a burdensome chore.
Odonchimed Sodtavilan (Sodoo), a student from
Mongolia, developed a system that uses AI to readanalog meters and notify workers of the values via
smartphones and other devices. Another Mongolian
student, Bayarbat Nomunbayasgalant (Nomuha),later joined the project. Together they won the firstprize at the 2019 KOSEN Deep Learning Contest(KOSEN-DCON).
In 2020, they used the prize money to establish
IntegrAI. KOSEN-DCON’s follow-up support
for the winners facilitated a smooth start for thecompany. YANO Shohei, a teacher at NITNC, said,“Even we didn’t realize
this technology’s truevalue. But the staff
at KOSEN-DCON
recognized the highThe IntegrAI system is ready to go
after simply attaching a camera to aninstrument.

AI automatically reads and records analog anddigital meter values. The user can freely configure
settings such as standard values to receive a
notification when there is an anomaly.

demand for applying DX to decades-old equipment
and strongly encouraged us to start a business.”
Nomuha added, “The KOSEN-DCON people helped
us with the startup paperwork. Without them, wewouldn’t have made the decision to start the business.”
The IntegrAI product is used in company factories,
as well as to manage the local government’s storageof COVID-19 vaccines, and to monitor fuel data for
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA).
One potential customer is now considering using
IntegrAI to manage highway electrical systems.
Sodoo said that kosen are appealing because “theyoffer a great environment for using your hands.
When I was there, I was making something every dayin Mr. Yano’s lab. I don’t think we would have beenable to develop the IntegrAI product without thatenvironment.”
The Japanese government intends to encourage
the creation of more such startups from kosen. Thegovernment came out with the Startup Development
Five-Year Plan in November 2022, which calls forstronger education in entrepreneurship at such schools.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology has included 6 billion yen (around44 million dollars) in its proposed supplementarybudget for fiscal 2022 to cover the cost of improving
the educational environment geared toward
generating startups at kosen.
Yano said, “From a young age, the students
learn close by to real worksites so that they canthen innovate. That’s what kosen can offer.”
Many startups like IntegrAI have emerged
from such schools. Through practical study,
we can expect those educational institutions tosteadily provide technology that benefits realworld workplaces.