Japanese tech firm hosts hackathon with prize for sushi dinner

A Japanese tech company held an app development competition in San Francisco with a very Japanese reward – a sushi dinner served by a famous chef.

The sushi hackathon took place on Sunday and featured 23 teams selected from approximately 300 applicants. They presented applications using generative artificial intelligence.

The theme of the competition was increasing the profitability of online retail stores. The grand prize was $30,000 in addition to the sushi dinner.

One application automatically creates web designs based on product photos. Another has a multilingual AI assistant that helps users shop on foreign websites.

The main prize went to the team that developed an application that predicts the availability of new products to potential customers.

Uematsu Sakiko, a spokesman for the firm that organized the event, says her company wants to use cutting-edge technology produced in Silicon Valley.

She added that she hopes the ideas presented at the event will pave the way for breakthrough innovation.