11 July 2024

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is honored to announce that its collaborative research project, "Wire Tracking and Detailed Quality Evaluation of Electric Cable Products using Challenged Employees in the loop Active Learning Scheme” (hereinafter referred to as "this paper"), led by Yutaka Hoshina from Analysis Technology Research Center, Sumitomo Electric and Ryusuke Ueki from Qualtec Co., Ltd., has been awarded the "2023 JSAI Incentive Award" from the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), the largest academic society in the field of artificial intelligence in Japan.　The award ceremony was held on June 28, 2024, at Keio University Mita Campus, and a certificate of commendation was presented by JSAI.

The "2023 JSAI Incentive Award" is given to outstanding achievements selected from the research papers presented at the JSAI conference held from April 2023 to March 2024.

Sumitomo Electric has been promoting employment for people with disabilities, mainly through its subsidiary, Sumiden Friend Co., Ltd. This paper reported on the implementation of deep active learning with the participation of people with disabilities, in collaboration with Sumiden Friend. It presents that employees of Sumiden Friend, who have been mainly engaged in office support work, are now directly involved in the design and quality evaluation processes through the creation of artificial intelligence to evaluate Sumitomo Electric’s key products such as electric cables.

This initiative was recognized as a valuable scheme for the application of artificial intelligence in the future society in terms of creating environments where more people with disabilities can thrive in more diverse jobs, and the effective use of deep learning technology, leading to this award. Please refer to the following paper for more details.

■Wire Tracking and Detailed Quality Evaluation of Electric Cable Products using Challenged Employees in the loop Active Learning Scheme (Japanese Only)
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsaisigtwo/2023/SAI-048/2023_01/_pdf/-char/ja

Comment from Yutaka Hoshina, Development Planning Department, Analysis Technology Research Center, Sumitomo Electric:
I am proud that the initiative we undertook together with the members of Sumiden Friend has been recognized. As part of our commitment to diversity, our goal is to help create workplaces where everyone can work with ease, and to promote this initiative to pave the way for a society where anyone can participate in AI creation.