Based on the experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake, one of the IT companies in Sendai “ANDEX” is developing a regional information app that can collect personal information in the event of a disaster and a system that streamlines evacuation shelter operations with an "AI camera."

"BOSAI-TECH Business Matching" is a global business matching event in the field of disaster prevention hosted online by Sendai City and others in March 2021 which was during the COVID-19 Pandemic. While various companies from Western and Asian countries were pitching, there was an employee from ANDEX explaining their services in English.

Mr. Muhammad Hairil Amri Bin Narzari (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Haili) from Malaysia.

He interned at ANDEX while studying abroad at Tohoku University and started working at this company from 2019. While doing his daily routine such as IT system development, he also works on overseas expansion of the company's services.

Mr. Haili who joined this company as the company's first foreign employee

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, the company has developed a regional tourism app "MAPCOMI" that can be used to collect information in the event of a disaster.

After its release in 2012, it was introduced by some private companies,
but Mr. Haili came up with the idea that this technology they had could be used for further disaster prevention services. And at "BOSAI-TECH Business Matching", he announced the concept of the idea to install a relay function with a drone camera into the app in the event of a disaster and a function that guides the routes to evacuation shelters.

At the event, he received interview offers from companies in South Korea, Indonesia, the United States, France and Thailand.

Mr. Haili said “I found out that focal points differed depending on a country. For example, the countries in Southeast Asia are interested in flood control, and the United States and France emphasize the perspective of terrorism. Since we have established a network with overseas companies through the event, there is a possibility for specific collaborations from now on.”

Jun Mishima, who is a representative director of ANDEX, said that “overseas expansion has been stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic for about two years, but it was great that online communication did not make us feel distant with overseas companies.

First, we can communicate and discuss the preparations through ZOOM, and when we finally go to the country, we will already be at the point where we can start our business together. Using online communication made me realize ideas and opportunity for overseas expansion.”

Jun Mishima, representative director of ANDEX

In addition to the app, there is a disaster prevention service that the company is going to focus on developing this year.

It is a system that improves the efficiency of evacuation shelter operations by installing an "AI camera" in the evacuation shelter set up in the event of a disaster.

By installing a camera at the reception of evacuation shelters, AI automatically determines the approximate age, gender, number of evacuees, etc.

By sharing the evacuee data obtained from this system with the server of the local government, the local government staff can grasp the number of people and attributes of each evacuation shelter and utilize it to allocate necessary relief supplies.

For example, if there are infants, they need to have milk and diapers and if there are women, they need to have sanitary products, etc. It will make it easier to allocate appropriate relief supplies according to the shelter.

The company’s area-limited network "Region BWA", which is the only one to license as a business operator in Sendai City, will enable people even in the event of a disaster to send data from evacuation shelters to local governments.