Application development for the retail operations improvement solution MiseMise
About Me
My name is Luna Sugiyama, and I am a master’s student in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. During my undergraduate studies, I conducted research on the quantization of Vision Transformer models. In contrast, my graduate research focuses on the physical layer of wireless communications. My research is primarily simulation-based rather than experimental.
Why I Applied for the Internship
I first learned about PFN from senior members of my lab who had participated in the internship. From what I heard, PFN offers an environment where you can work alongside many highly talented individuals, and where interns themselves come from diverse backgrounds. I found this very appealing. I believed that by joining such an environment, I would be able to connect with outstanding people and learn a great deal.
What My Days Looked Like During the Internship
I worked on developing a demo and prototype for a product location search system used in retail stores. A typical day looked like this: I arrived at the office around 9:00, attended a daily meeting from 10:30 to 10:45, and spent most of the morning on development work. Around noon, I had lunch with my team, picking up bento lunches together. In the afternoon, I continued development and meetings, and wrapped up work around 18:00.
What I Gained from the Internship
One of the most valuable outcomes was gaining a clearer idea of the kind of work I want to pursue in the future. During the internship, I visited actual stores to conduct user interviews, gathered feedback, and iterated on the system design. I found this cycle of hypothesis testing—through interviews and feedback—particularly interesting, and it made me realize that I would enjoy work that involves this kind of iterative process.
In addition, PFN provided many opportunities for interaction, allowing me to connect with interns from different universities and academic backgrounds. This helped me expand my network significantly.
Who Should Apply?
PFN offers not only research-focused work but also opportunities to be involved in product-oriented development, including projects that run real-world PoCs. If you are more interested in product development than pure research, I recommend choosing a theme aligned with that interest. Also, since interns come from a wide range of fields, PFN is a great environment for those who want to interact with people with diverse technical backgrounds and exchange ideas.
