44. Shoutout to Sushi

1. Executive Summary
In Japan, there are 312,000 visually-challenged
people*. These people often face isolation due tolack of support and unsupportive community,
which leads to lower quality of life and in the aging
society, the number of sufferers is expected toincrease. To encourage visually impaired people
to be more included in society, we propose an app
named “Apoyo” The concept of “Apoyo” is to build
a matching platform where visually-challenged
people can find a caregiver outside their home.
*Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Survey on
Difficulty in Living”
2. Mission
The app we offer, "Apoyo", connects users andtheir hearts. “Apoyo” means support in Spanish.
Support may seem unilateral, but what we aim foris a society in which people help each other andrespect individuality. We aim this app to become
an opportunity for that society, and we aim
barrier-free of mind is not special. Let's help eachother beyond the visually-challenged with "Apoyo."
3. Product and Service​
Apoyo connects visually challenged people inneed and people who want to help them out. You
need to fill in your headshot, name, age, andprefecture to use this app and this prevents theapp from being abused. All the users can selectfrom two modes of the Apoyo; one is for users whoknow their schedule and destinations, and theother is for users who randomly get spare timethroughout the day.
Here are the steps to use Apoyo for visuallychallenged or elderly people(¥100/10mins);
1. Enter the destination and then you can findpeople nearby or going in the same direction tohelp you out on the map.
2. Select people to help you.
3. Decide where to meet using our chatcommands and go for a walk with them.

Here are steps to use Apoyo for those who want tohelp;
1. When you have time to spare, turn on
location services.
2. If there is someone looking for your help,
you will get the notification.
3. Check the meeting spot and help themwalk and take public transportations.
We believe that it is important to inform thesituation to visually-challenged people when
supporting them. If they find themselves struggling
to walk alone, it is best to offer them some help.
Furthermore, we will have a rating and review
feature so it shows which helper is good at helping
out or is legitimate.
4. Target Customer
We target visually challenged people and elderly
people who have visual problems. Aroundvisually-challenged 312,000 people in Japan*.
Around 60 million people in Japan are over theage of fifty** and 75% of people of over fifty years
old have cataract***.
Thus there are a total of 25 million people who
apply as the overall market.
*Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Survey on
Difficulty in Living” **Statistics Bureau, Ministry ofInternal Affairs and Communications ***Keio
Hospital inforMation & Patient Assistance Service
5. Market/Industry Analysis
At present, the market size of the app industry is
1.2 trillion yen*, of which the matching app market
is about 62 billion yen**, and we aim to generate
440 million yen of sales. The matching app market
will double in the next six years. ​Considering theaging population in Japan, the market of elderly
people will ​expand significantly. ​The two aspects
will keep the market of matching app for the elderlygrowing.
*Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications**Digitalinfact co.

Other apps for visually-challenged people such as“seeing AI” aim to support their daily activity, whileour ave a more enjoyable and high-quality life
through product aims to hh interactions withvarious new people.

However, this app can help them to move andpromote interaction with various people.
8. FinanceYear 1

Year 2

Year 3

46185

462

1.25

50

125

500

2000

500

33.75

135

337.5

4500

18000
045000Totalcost

14.852
includinginitial cost

5,152

5,852,000

Appserver

0.20.5

1.2Others

4,892

4,892

4,892

Profit31.398179.848456.648

MillionyenThetotalsales
6. Marketing
To find new users for the app, we use Universal
App Campaigns, provided by Google. This ad
campaign allows us to advertise on search,
YouTube, and Google Play Store. We run an adwith a budget of 3 million yen costing 200 yen per
one download, for more than 3 months, within
30,000 yen per day.
Moreover, aiming to increase the users ofvisually challenged people, we advertise at Social
Activities Centers for the Disabled and businessskill development school for them.
To help our users keep using this app, and tohelp them better understand the situations offeredby this app in which users help others and others
appreciate what our users did for them, we givepresent for the user who performs an activity each
day for a week and we indicate the number ofpeople who you have helped so far to make theuser feel rewarded at the end of every activity.
7. Contribution to SDGs
The visually-challenged people find it
difficult to go out, especially in the first place.
The number of people with visual-challenged
due to age is increasing in Japan. Not going out
can cause depression and diabetes. If thevisually-challenged people go out easily using thisapp, it will help prevent those diseases.
As personal support service does not include
commuting, visually-challenged can feel
insecure and hard to work. The app will
enable them to work comfortably and havemore freedom of job selections. Many
Visually-challenged people often suffer fromprejudice as physically-challenged people while
the only problem for them is the lack ofinformation.
This app will provide opportunities tointeract with people with and without visualbarriers and to educate children throughtheir parents using this app.
When visually-challenged people use
public transportation, the complexity of thestation premises threatens their safety.

commuting

Going
out

users

users

*​Initial cost​(Non Recurring engineering+Cost foradvertising : 10,000,000 ​Others:​ office rent,
domain name, AI, Updating+fixing bugs
We provide our service for the customers for 100
yen per 10 mins. 25% of the fee will be our sales,
and the other 75% will be for the caregivers.
Because the number of users will increase year byyear, the cost for maintaining our server will also
increase.
9. Conclusion
As the senior industry grows in the entire world,
this business is expected to expand and scale on
its own. We want more people to learn to give ahand when someone needs help. By building thementality of respecting each other no matter what
type of disability they have, we want to change theway society works for them.