Ota joined MOUantAI, a project started by Associate Professor Meng Lin of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering in the College of Science and Engineering at Ritsumeikan University, because he wanted to explore AI-driven services. Until Hirata joined the project, Ota had been planning to join the venture contest with a different business plan.
“The business plan that my team originally came up with only focused on how to leverage technology. We were unable to identify issues that we were uniquely suited to solve,” recounts Ota.

After this, Ota approached Hirata and invited him to join MOUantAI. Hirata says that the impetus for devising a business plan focused on nursing care came largely from his father, who works in the industry.
“He told me how difficult it is to measure the amount of food nursing home residents eat every day with just the naked eye. As the people who eyeball the food intake change, so too do the standards. Creating a system that allows for objective decisions will reduce the burden on those working in nursing homes and help prevent residents from requiring nursing care. I felt this was a service that will be necessary for the future of Japan,” said Hirata, explaining how he came up with the idea.

The two then visited a nursing home, where they were surprised at how well the caregivers could converse with the residents. Residents whose muscles have atrophied can have difficulty speaking. The caregivers, who were able to capture the residents’ thoughts and feelings through eye contact, were like professional communicators. On the other hand, they also got a glimpse into the current situation, where caregivers were overwhelmed with miscellaneous tasks. They wanted to help caregivers so that they could focus on their professional duties, and this strengthened their determination to develop an application.

They were also reminded of the need for change in how nursing homes manage residents’ diets. If a resident's condition worsens and they are taken to the hospital, the doctor relies on their food intake as a vital piece of information. Despite the fact that advances in medicine have made it possible to quantify all factors, the measurement of food intake is the only factor for which information remains inaccurate. For this reason, they felt their goal should be to focus solely on reducing caregiver workload.

“You can provide nutritional support with an intravenous drip, but we heard that this is uncomfortable for the patients. The pleasure of oral eating orally is directly related to the joy of living on your own terms. We want patients to experience a healthy life for as long as possible, so we hope that Meshi-Pasha can be used for care prevention," said Ota. Nursing care is something that we will all eventually have to deal with in a few decades. Although the two felt it was something they would not have to worry about for quite some time, the visit presented them with a problem to be tackled.

In order to give shape to their idea, Ota and Hirata first proposed their Meshi-Pasha business plan at the 20th Student Venture Contest 2023 Powered by RIMIX—The Final Pitch.” After passing the first round of judging, they came up against an obstacle in the second round. After the second round of judging, the judges criticized them harshly, telling them they could not understand what they were trying to convey at all. The nursing care industry requires specialized knowledge, so, to explain their idea in terms that everyone can understand, they needed to convey more information, which made for an unwieldy explanation.

Nevertheless, the two were chosen to advance to the final round of judging. They were keenly aware that they could not continue as planned, so they decided to completely change how they presented their idea. With the assistance of a RIMIX Mentor from the Ritsumeikan Division of Startup and Business Development Promotion, Hirata and Ota revised their script and the order of their presentation. Instead of trying to explain everything, they focused on telling a story in their own words. These efforts bore fruit, and the difference from the evaluation in the second round of judging was like night and day. In the final round of judging, they won four awards: the Grand Prize, the Kita-Osaka Shinkin Bank Award, the Chuo Accounts Office Award, and the NVCC Award.

Ota and Hirata continued to refine their business plan. They took home the top prize at Campus Venture Grand Prix Osaka 2023 and booked their ticket to the national competition. At the national competition held in Tokyo, they maintained their focus on the message they wanted to convey in their presentation and won the Judging Committee's Special Award, successfully taking home an award from a business contest known as the “gateway to success for student entrepreneurs.” Still, the two said they were left more frustrated than happy. In order to practically implement the business plan for Meshi-Pasha, which they were able to refine by participating in various contests, they decided to embark on a new journey and launched their own startup.

Hirata and Ota plan to start their own company called Doliggy. The company name is derived from two words, hoshi no yadori (“starry night”), which refers to constellations, and yadoriki (“mistletoe”), which means overcoming difficulties in the symbolic Japanese language of flowers. In preparation for the commercialization of the Meshi-Pasha application, the decision has been made to introduce it into some nursing homes on a trial basis. The two entrepreneurs expressed their enthusiasm by saying, "It is important to get our business off the ground, but we also want to be there for those people dealing with problems, and we will keep moving full steam ahead so that we can make the world a better place." We hope that their efforts to collect data for the development of their AI-driven app will lead them to become shining stars in the world of nursing care.