We recently featured a very intriguing energy-monitoring project from Japan by Sassor. Its ELP (Energy Literacy Platform) modules allow consumers to monitor the power consumption of all sorts of devices around the home, and access them via smartphone.
For more information about them, read our full profile from last week. But I was curious to learn a little more about the origin of this idea, so I asked one of the founders, Miyauchi Takayuki, a few questions about how it all started. Update: I was delighted to meet the Sassor team at the Global Mobile Internet Conference this past week in Beijing. Great bunch of guys.
1. How did Sassor first get started?
My co-founder (Shiuchi Ishibashi) was my high school classmate and and we have shared an apartment for about seven years. About two years ago, we went to the same graduate school and at that time we thought to [create a] start up. But at the beginning we were just talking that we hoped to do something after the graduation.
About a year ago, we applied to the E-idea competition (British Council) for a trial to explore some possibilities, and that [resulted in] the prototype of Energy Literacy Platform. After that, we brushed it up to become our present service by joining with another program (Open Network Lab) and taking advice from Naoki (Yamada) and many others. We will plan to open the service to the public this summer.
2. Where does the name Sassor come from?
As for Sassor name, it’s similar to how Apple got its name. It’s from the staple of their local area. We would like to be like an Apple, so we named our company name after one of our indigenous products. Our local specialties are sashimi (raw fish) and soy sauce. So we merged it and named it “Sassor” (sashimi + soy sauce)”. We just like it (laughs).
3. ELP sort of reminds me of Trangram, a similar ‘internet of things’ project in Japan.
Trangram is the work of a another member from Ishibashi’s lab back in graduate school.
4. So what did you study in graduate school? What inspired your work in this area?
We both studied Media Design (Human Interaction Design) in graduate school. We would like to sense human activity and connect the real world to the cloud.
5. Monitoring electricity looks like it will be very important after the Japan earthquake. Is there an opportunity for Sassor to help that problem?
Yes, it’s big opportunity for us.
6. Are the ELP modules expensive?
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