Amazing ML work by Japanese children

The song “The Greatest Love of all,” performed beautifully by Whitney Houston, begins with the lyrics:

“I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way…”

Japanese Children

It’s a beautiful sentiment, made much more so because it can be true. So I wanted to share the stories of three children in Japan who epitomize these lyrics and show us a potentially bright future made possible by ML.

Tontoko, a 14-year old girl from Tottori, Mebumebu, an 11 years old boy from Gifu and Ririka, an 11 years old girl from Okinawa, are wonderful examples of this.

In this video, they share their stories. A fabulous example is Ririka built an app using audio classification to alert drivers to slow down in the vicinity of endangered birds! You’ll also see how Tontoko used computer vision to connect books with music and how Mebumebu created a device to prevent excessive drinking by a beloved grandparent!

I’m always amazed by the solutions children see to problems in the world around them. So I’m inspired to be a small part of solutions like these and encourage you, dear reader, to do the same!

“A common misconception about machine learning is that it takes a genius to do it, but I think it’s actually easy and fun!” – Tontoko.