Aiming to realize joint development projects for new businesses using ChatGPT and collaborate with young engineers in India

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

Since the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022 and its growing importance and impact around the world, we had been working with two co-developers on a joint project to launch a new business utilizing ChatGPT before the start of our activities.
In addition, we have long been interested in learning about the thinking of young engineers overseas in order to link this technology to new business opportunities in the future.
Therefore, we thought that by participating in this project together with other joint development companies with the same objectives, we could achieve even greater synergy and results than if one company participated alone, and we approached each company about participating in the internship program to promote internationalization. One of the companies had long had the idea of expanding overseas and had been waiting for the opportunity to do so. Fortunately, all three companies were selected as host companies for this year's program and it was decided that we would proceed with the activities together.

Online communication and strategic linkage of initial team building

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

In this project, our company was in charge of program development, and one of the collaborating companies was responsible for creating a template for a new training program on ChatGPT. Specifically, our company and one other company are collaborating to develop a program related to ChatGPT, which is a prototype of a program that allows ChatGPT to memorize PDF data and answer questions.
Conventional systems only have the ability to answer basic knowledge-based questions, and updating information is a labor-intensive process that requires engineers to manually enter complex commands one by one. Therefore, we asked the interns to develop a program that would allow the server side to automatically perform the above steps when a PDF file is uploaded to a web page.
Since all of these activities were conducted online, we also focused on initial team building, as we believed that a smooth communication environment would be the key to success. As an example, we built relationships of trust while engaging with many people, including those outside the company, by offering Japanese language courses related to ChatGPT, exchanging photos of our lunches with each other, and inviting people to study at a corporate tutoring school. I believe that many of these mechanisms helped motivate the interns in the early stages of the program.

Discovering new possibilities in the education sector brought about by ChatGPT and expanding business opportunities

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

The synergistic effects of joint development exceeded expectations, and the project development proceeded successfully.
We were able to create a system that allows the general public to automatically add information to the knowledge base by simply uploading a file to a web page, a task that until now could only be handled by engineers.
Besides that, we also gained a new discovery: that ChatGPT can be used to consolidate the learning effects of education. Based on the lessons learned in this activity, we believe that there is a potential demand for more Indian English speakers in the future and plan to release this course as an "Introduction to ChatGPT in Indian English" course together with the joint development company.
It was also a very rewarding experience for us to see up close the high level of learning ability and willingness and eagerness to learn of young Indian engineers.
Through this activity, we feel that the possibilities for new business opportunities for our company using ChatGPT have further expanded.