Canada Japan Co-op Program Experiential
Work Report
EMC Healthcare 株式会社
Hamamatsucho, Minato-ku, Tokyo World Trade Center Building 33F

https://www.emcjpn.com/

Silvano Todesco
Electrical Engineering
University of Victoria

Submitted on: May 06 2019

Contents
EMC Healthcare ............................................................................................................................................ 3
My Work ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Knowledge and Skills..................................................................................................................................... 3
My Future Academic and Career .................................................................................................................. 4
My Friends and Colleagues ........................................................................................................................... 4
My Living Space............................................................................................................................................. 5
Cultural Experience ....................................................................................................................................... 5
My Recommendations ................................................................................................................................ 10
Final Impressions and Remarks................................................................................................................... 11EMC Healthcare
EMC Healthcare was established in February of 2017 by the owner and CEO Yashito Date. The company
was established under the name Eagle Matrix Consulting Co., Ltd. and this name was changed to thecurrent name in August 2018. EMC Healthcare has a successful partnership with Findex Co,. Ltd. andthey share an office as well as work closely with Findex and its products and operations. EMC Healthcare
has a successful product with a wearable electrocardiograph (ECG) device. There are two version of thisproduct one is for sports and personal use. The other is a class 1 medical device used for remote patientmonitoring and sleep disorder screening. Below is an image of the CLAM. wearable for sports andpersonal use. EMC Healthcare is expanding and moving into other markets and areas related tohealthcare and care service.

My Work
My work was in several areas. I worked designing a Bluetooth module for a wearable device, making 3D
jigs and models of products, design high speed PCB, experimenting with virtual reality hardware,
firmware testing, and hardware testing. There are many other small things I did once or twice such as
UV printing or 3D scanning objects. Essentially my work was electrical design and product testing. I wasone of the only other engineers at EMC Healthcare in the office and mostly worked by myself or with myboss on projects. We worked with some others in different parts of the world, but I almost neverinteracted directly with these people. And out department was the primary product designers andsupport for everything in EMC Healthcare. We designed products for customers and other organizations,as well as supported our current products.

Knowledge and Skills
While working at EMC Healthcare I was able to learn constantly. In all of my projects I was constantly
improving and learning new design techniques or knowledge related to design. The best experience I
gained was learning to design PCB for manufacturing. This idea is something I had not learned about orexperienced in my previous work and designs before coming to Japan. I also learned a lot of the rules
and how to design for things I didn’t know about, for example how to design a USB 3.0 system. Outsideof electrical work I learned a lot of 3D design work with 3D printers, I had to print many different things
and I learned the basics of 3D design work and the limitations of mechanical designs for manufacturingand testing. The most interesting experience was gained doing hands on work and applying the theory

and practice I learned in my classes. Such as antenna design, wave guide design, and antenna testing in
my design process. It was extremely fun and interesting to be able to do this work, I looked forward tolearning every day.

My Future Academic and CareerMy academic career in engineering is almost over as I have one semester left to finish when I return toCanada. This experience unfortunately will not affect my engineering studies, but I have learned andbecome more interested in the business side of operations. I would like to, if I have a chance, to go andstudy finance and business finance to help my career and work place.
For my career I will hopefully be coming back to Japan when I graduate and continue working here for a
few years. I have been talking with my boss and the CEO about me coming back to work later this year.

My Friends and Colleagues
In the EMC Healthcare office, there are several people who are in the office everyday for day tooperations and there are a few people who come and go when they can. In the last 2 months have had 2
new hires as the company expands. I feel I have become friends with everyone in the office with myclosest friends are my boss Steven and my coworker Kazeto. I am also friends’ good friends with Shota,Shuhei, Arisa, Urakami and Ryoga. We talk every day we talk about work or what is going on in our lives.
They have been so nice to me when I first came to Japan and I believe that really helped us form a good
relationship.
I feel my relationship with Steven is less of a boss and underling and more of an equal in respect toengineering work and on a personal level as a friend. Steven does a lot of management side of work in
the office as well.
Normally I go to lunch with Kazeto and Urakami as well as Shota and Steve sometimes. If I have lunch at
the office I eat with Steven, Arisa and Shuhei. When the knew hires, Hayato and Oishi joined they would
join Kazeto, Urakami, and I for lunch most days so I have developed good relationships with them aswell.
Unfortunate I do don’t get to spend time with the back-office works, mostly only Baba and Yasufumi.
Although I have good relationships with them, and we greet each other I rarely get to spend lunch ortime with them, so I have not been able to develop a better relationship.
Outside of EMC Healthcare in our office is also is a company which Date works with and is called Asia
Bridge. There are 3 older gentlemen who work at this company and I also chat with them sometimes
and they teach me interesting Japanese. I normally sit next to Sato from this company and he used towork as a chemical engineer in the US and we have many interesting conversations. They have beenvery help and nice to me.
My overall experience at the work site with my colleagues and friends has been wonderful and I lookforward to work every day in part of this and what I am doing at work.

My Living SpaceI am living in a small suite in a very famous neighborhood in Tokyo named Shimokitazawa. It is known to
be one of the top place younger people want to live in within Japan. It has also been ranked one of thecoolest places in the world by several publications. I have been living here for almost a year and canguarantee that this is coolest and most interesting place I have ever lived and will probably ever live in.
The surrounding area has such and interesting history and they is an unbelievable amount of shops,
cafes, bars, and restaurants tucked away in Shimokita. The food is varied but Shimokita is known for its
sweet fluffy pancakes and curry, especially soup curry, live shows and clothing shops. On the weekdays
Shimokita is very busy with many people exploring the streets and the slowest day of the week is
Wednesday when lots of the shops and places close. On the weekend Shimokita is packed with people
wandering up and down the streets. There are always events related to the food or the town going on.
Outside the station is a large open area that is used for a public market and food events every weekend.
Many people come and sell their handmade items, or you can experience different kinds of food fromother prefectures in Japan if for some reason you don’t want to eat anything local. For the live showsside of things there are a lot of music and stand up/live performance venues in Shimokita. Everyweekend between 4 and 7 near the station there is people giving out tickets to their shows andperformances or just performing on the street.
I feel very lucky to have lived in such an amazing place with so many interesting places. I have lived here
for a year and haven’t had a chance to eat everywhere or go everywhere yet. I plan to come again in thefuture and do this!
As for the actual living environment, I have a 1 room suite with a connected standing shower andconnected sliding door toilet. There is a small kitchen, with 1 element IR stove, a microwave, and mini
fridge. I have a small desk, a dresser, and a simple double sized bed. I had limited storage and needed touse coin laundry which was only a short 2 minuet walk from home. So, I had the basics for living and it
was within my expectations for a single room place in Tokyo. I really enjoyed living here and it will
become a fond memory.

Cultural Experience
Within my travels in Japan I was able to go to several places which were culturally interesting andimportant. One of the most interesting and difficult things I did was climb Mount Fuji with two of myfriends from Canada and the US. I visited the shrine at the top but was unable to enjoy the view as it wascloudy. My coworkers asked me to bring the company toy panda to the top which I kindly obliged. Thiswas my biggest personal challenge I set out to do while I was in Japan and I accomplished this.

1 Top of Mount Fuji with company Panda

I went to a few shrines and cultural events here in the Tokyo as well. In Shimokita I participated in local
festivals and events. It seems like at the local Shimokita events they always have a clown, you can see
him below in first picture. Every festival and event that I went to had a few clowns wondering around. In
the second picture is an Awa Odori festival which I participated in one of the dance groups which was
open to anyone during the festival. Awa Ordori has been performed in Shimokita for over 50 years.

2 Shimokitazawa Summer Festival

3 Shimokitazawa Awa Odori Festival

Within Tokyo area, for example I went to this Yasukuni Shrine for Mitama Matsuri. I also went tofireworks in festival in Enoshima. I have visited Meiji Shine many times as it was very close to Shimokita.
I also visited Sensou-ji twice for exploring and for Setsubun festival.

4 Mitama Matsuri at Yasukuni Shrine

5 Sensou0ji Shrine

During the winter break and Christmas, I went to Okinawa I went to many places here, but the culturally
significant places were the Okinawa Peace Memorial, Himeyuri Memorial, Ryukyu Glass Village andseveral beaches which were used during the Battle of Okinawa in World War Two. Any time we werearound war ruins we respected the places and paid respect to those who sadly fought and died here.

6 Himeyuri Memorial Okinawa Japan

7 Traditional Ryukyu glass making in Okinawa Japan

8 Okinawa World War 2 sealed ruins at a hidden beach.

Before these visits in Oiknawa the only other war related sites I have been to was the Estevan point lighthouse which was the only place in western Canada to be attacked in World War Two. This was a very
interesting cultural and historical experience and wish I could have visited more places like it inOkinawa.
My cultural experience, I feel, is unique to me and how I experience each event and location. I find it
difficult to describe everything simply and clearly. But the best I can do is, that Japan has a unique andfascinating culture both modern and historical and I think it should be preserved and explored as muchas possible.

My Recommendations
For any student coming to Japan though the Canada Japan Co-op program I can not stress enough how
important it is to meet locals and make friends with them. Go out and do things with these locals andfriends you make. Having Japanese friends or coworkers to do things with you. Limit your time withother native English speakers or CJCP students as much as possible. This will greatly benefit yourexperience in Japan and what you do. The more time you spend with locals the more you will learn fromthem not just in language but in culture, social norms, and society within Japan. I spent most of my freetime with Japanese people and going out to places they recommended.
Another recommendation is before coming to Japan if your school has an English language school forinternational students try to volunteer here and make friends with people from all over the worldincluding Japan. Invite these international students to your favorite places in your home town and givethem a great experience in Canada. From this they will want to give you an amazing experience in theirown local places in Japan or elsewhere in the world. I did this before I came, and I had a goodunderstanding of how to interact with Japanese people made friends before I had even left Canada. I
also made friends with people from Taiwan and I visited Taiwan while I was in Japan and was able tomeet these friends as well as my Japanese friends. Being able to make friends from all over Japan thisway will give you places to visit and things to do while you are in Japan as well as locals who can show
you their country.

Final Impressions and Remarks
While living in Japan my sound like a scary thing for many and maybe people don’t feel prepared before
coming here. I was slightly nervous that I wasn’t ready, I didn’t learn enough, I had not prepared
everything I could have. But my feeling was unfounded, and I felt very relaxed when settling in here. Ihad help from many friends and my boss in any troubles and was and explore and have fun withoutworries. Living in Japan was very easy for me and I adapted well to the local culture and people. I madeso many memories with friends and this experience has permanently changed my life. I will be comingback to Japan as soon as I can, and hopefully I will be staying for a longer period next time I come!