Researcher - Mercari/R4D(Internship)
Mercari, inc., Japan

"What can I do to help society thrive with the finite resources we have?" The Mercari marketplace app was born in 2013 out of this thought by our founder Shintaro Yamada as he traveled the world. We believe that by circulating all forms of value, not just physical things and money, we can create opportunities for anyone to realize their dreams and contribute to society and the people around them. Mercari aims to use technology to connect people all over the world and create a world where anyone can unleash their potential.For more information about Mercari Group’s mission, see Mercari's Culture Doc.

Here at Mercari, we work to realize a world in which no one’s potential is limited by their background and everyone has the opportunity to freely create value. We also firmly believe that a mindset of Diversity amp; Inclusion is essential for us to achieve our mission.

This, of course, extends to our hiring practices as well. Mercari is committed to eliminating discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, physical disability, and other such factors so that anyone who shares our mission and values can join us, regardless of their background. For more details, please read our Damp;I Statement.

R4D team’s mission

Under the mission of "Pioneering the path toward undiscovered value," Mercari Group established the Ramp;D organization, Mercari R4D, to contribute to the realization of a society that circulates all forms of value to unleash the potential in all people, and to foment the future of innovation. At R4D, we have been working on creating pathways to new value, emphasizing a co-innovation approach.

Co-innovation is an Ramp;D mechanism that aims to solve social issues and realize a better society by engaging in collaboration beyond the boundaries of communities such fields as industry and academia, and even going beyond national borders. Ever since its establishment, R4D has always aimed to be a hub that connects all communities.

As a step toward becoming a world-leading center for co-innovation, R4D wants to create a place where everyone can experience the potential of future innovation through our research.

Currently, focusing on the core concept of "using technology to change the way we exchange value," R4D has been working on sparking innovation in Mercari Group's services and businesses, including areas such as AI, blockchain, HCI (Human Computer Interaction), quantum computing, mobility, communication, ELSI, and more.

For the R4D Research intern position, we are looking for researchers on challenging research projects on the following themes. As one of R4D’s researchers, the R4D research interns work closely with internal product teams at Mercari Group and external research institutes such as universities to lead research projects with the goal of sparking innovation.

(Learn more about Mercari's mission and values here.)

Specific research themes are as follows.

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Scope

• 2-3 months long research project based on the state of the art research published in accessibility / HCI research. The idea is to at least complete a working prototype within the internship duration, with possible evaluation and publication later on.
• Expected contribution: enough for a poster submission at such top conferences as ACM ASSETS or ACM CHI
• Required experience: experience in mobile or web development, some experience in running models locally or remotely (e.g., Python, PyTorch, using OpenAI API, or other tools), ability and knowledge in conducting academic research (reviewing literature, knowledge and understanding of presented areas of research)

Themes

1. Accessible and automated item listing creation process through accessible picture taking and generative image description

• Problem:
• Listing creation is perhaps the most common problem on why users with vision disabilities are reluctant to participate in C2C platforms as sellers. Users commonly reported experiencing difficulties with taking a picture and creating a detailed item description that mentions certain specific issues about the item (e.g., missing items, scuff marks, etc.). How can we make this process accessible? We are looking for a limited scope survey along with prototype proposal and/or creation during this project
• Examples of similar papers:
• GenAssist: Making Image Generation Accessible
• Hacking, Switching, Combining: Understanding and Supporting DIY Assistive Technology Design by Blind People
• MultiViz: Towards User-Centric Visualizations and Interpretations of Multimodal Models

2. Exploring accessible authentication

Job Rewards and Benefits