July 29, 2015

Tokyo, July 29, 2015 - Rakuten, Inc. today announced the opening of two new overseas branches of the Rakuten Institute of Technology in Singapore and Boston. The addition of these two new branches brings the total number of Rakuten Institute of Technology branches to five in four countries.

The Rakuten Institute of Technology is a dedicated research and development organization within the Rakuten Group that provides support for the specialist activities of its researchers with the aim of realizing innovative services utilizing cutting edge technologies on the Internet. The Rakuten Institute of Technology proactively collaborates with industry and academia, holding personnel exchanges with educational institutions to incorporate academic knowledge into its research.

The research team at the Rakuten Institute of Technology Singapore will be led by Dr. Ewa Szymanska, an expert in the fields of psychology and mobile and social innovations. The main areas of study at the branch will be psychology, behavioral science and mobile and social innovations. Research will be carried out into internet services that increase user satisfaction based on the expertise in these fields, the findings of which will be fed back to the businesses of the group in order to further improve the various services offered by Rakuten.

The research team at the Rakuten Institute of Technology Boston will be led by Dr. Ankur Datta, who has prior experience of managing a team of data scientists as the chief scientist at an e-commerce company. The main fields of research at the branch will be machine learning, deep learning and AI, focusing specifically on research in the rapidly advancing area of AI and collaborating with big data teams at the various research centers around the world to further advance applications of big data.

In addition, the two new branches will proactively collaborate with local universities and research institutes to recruit overseas researchers. As part of these activities, Rakuten Institute of Technology Singapore will today launch the "Rakuten-Viki Global TV Recommender Challenge," a contest aimed at data scientists in the countries and regions of Asia with the goal of solving a problem utilizing the data of the global video streaming service provider and Rakuten Group company Viki.

About Rakuten Institute of Technology Singapore
 Date of establishment: July 1, 2015
Head of research: Dr. Ewa Szymanska
Areas of research: Psychology, behavioral science, mobile and social innovations

About Rakuten Institute of Technology Boston
 Date of establishment: July 1, 2015
Head of research: Dr. Ankur Datta
Areas of research: Machine learning, deep learning, AI

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