Could you tell us a bit about what Facil'iti Japon does? Please give a brief description of your company.

Our business is research, development and provision of web accessibility solution FACIL'iti.

FACIL'iti is a ground-breaking digital accessibility solution developed by the French social venture FACIL'iti SAS over a period of five years, in collaboration with associations of disabled people and many other organizations.

Our solutions for making websites more comfortable and accessible for digital experience are based on three axes - visual, behavioural and cognitive - to improve the accessibility of websites.

In Japan, there is still low awareness of digital accessibility. We not only promote FACIL'iti's services, but also actively work to raise awareness on the importance of digital accessibility in Japan. And with our solutions, we believe in our business to make Japan's digital society more comfortable for everyone.

We are also actively listening to the voices of users in Japan and improving our solutions to make them even better for Japanese users.

Could you describe your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Yves Cornu is Managing Director of FACIL’iti, CEO of FACIL’iti Japon KK and Vice-President of French Foreign Trade Advisors in New Aquitaine. With a literary university education (Sorbonne 1985-1990), he resumed his studies at EM Lyon in 2008 (MBA). After the first part of his career as CEO of a historical silk weaving company in the Haute Couture industry, he met Frédéric Sudraud during the creation of FACIL'iti and decided to join this adventure and use his network to position the startup at a worldwide level and, for example, to open a subsidiary in Japan from the first year of existence.

Why did you apply to the Startupbootcamp Scale Osaka program?

We applied because we were very attracted by the program content, the achievements to date, and the excellent partners.

How is Facil'iti Japon working to build smart cities/smart living?

We believe that digital accessibility is essential for all people to live comfortably as we move towards smart cities. For this reason, we are actively engaged in public relation activities and demonstrations together with local authorities and partner companies to spread the importance of digital accessibility.

How have you found the experience of going through the program? Are there any challenges in collaboration with large companies?

It has been a very useful program. Because our partners understood and symphonized with our vision and business and were very supportive.

What was the most significant lesson learned during the program?

That the quality of services satisfactory to Japanese users is very high and requires the kind of meticulous attention to detail that is unique to Japan.This is a very high quality requirement, and the same applies to the partners. Because they believe in consideration for the users beyond what is essential. If we can clear this up and provide better services, the Japanese market will be a very good market.

What are you looking for to make your next steps?

We are already ready to start discussions with our partners on the next steps. Our next aim is to officially install our solutions on websites and to install them on other websites within the partnership. And to scale our business in Japan.