Photo/Illutration Koga Nakai in Tokushima on June 23 (Kazunori Haga)

TOKUSHIMA--A team led by a medical student is upgrading an app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the cries of babies and determine what they want.

Koga Nakai, a sixth-year student at the Tokushima University Faculty of Medicine, took an interest in babies’ cries three years ago after hearing from mothers who suffered from postpartum depression.

Nakai, 24, who aspired to be an orthopedic surgeon at the time, learned that the mothers initially found the cries of their babies lovable.

But after hearing their babies cry every day, the mothers began to feel annoyed and frustrated over not knowing why their children were bawling.

They worried about what others thought of them when their babies wouldn’t stop crying.

Nakai also read an article that said 14.3 percent of around 100,000 Japanese women surveyed suffered from postpartum depression one month after childbirth.

He volunteered to work at a day care center, where he interviewed 523 parents and other guardians.

Knowing that crying is the babies’ tool of communication, Nakai believed that fewer parents would feel troubled by child care if they didn’t feel annoyed by the crying.

He felt that AI could determine why babies cry based on the volume, frequency and other particulars.

While attending the medical school, he completed Nagoya University’s personnel development course on the use of AI in medical practice.

He also did research at Stanford University in the United States, where he learned about medical equipment that draws on AI systems and data analysis.

Nakai enlisted the help of medical institutions and day care centers to collect recordings of babies’ cries, and he used an AI system that he developed to analyze more than 12,000 clips of voice data.

He founded Cross Medicine Inc. in September 2022.

The following year, he released a preliminary edition of Awababy Pro, an app that shows pictorially why a baby is crying when the cry is recorded on a smartphone.

It takes the app about six seconds to classify babies’ feelings into five patterns, including “drowsy,” “in a bad mood” and “hungry,” based on the frequencies and volumes of their cries.

The app can also show how the parent can stop the crying, such as by caressing, hugging or giving milk to the baby.

People of Nakai’s age joined the entrepreneur when he started up the venture, including Ryo Muramatsu, a student at the Keio University Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, who majors in audio signal processing.

Muramatsu, 21, won a special award at the International Science and Engineering Fair for high school students before he entered the university. He helped to improve the app’s voice analysis accuracy to 87 percent.

Nakai and his venture are drawing increasing attention.

He has won top prizes at business contests organized by the Shikoku Economic Federation, the Kochi prefectural government and other parties. He received high marks for the uniqueness of his concept.

Nakai plans to release a pay edition of the Awababy app in late October. It will allow babies’ feelings to be visualized in up to 12 patterns.

His company is calling for individual and business subscribers, who can use the app for employee benefits and welfare.

Several businesses have already shown interest in the app, Nakai said.

“I wish to draw on medicine and technology to create a society where life is easier,” he said. “For starters, I wish to realize a society where mothers and fathers who are raising a child for the first time can do so in an enjoyable, free and easygoing manner.”

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