ZuKool is committed to enabling users to easily and quickly find information that is highly relevant to their individual tastes and requirements.
ZuKool's adaptive search technologies - advanced AI search and recommendation technologies based on an individual's own preferences -
empower users by putting them at the center of the information universe and in control.
Founded in October 2005, ZuKool is headquartered in Berkeley, California, with its R&D team currently based in Tokyo.
Lynn R. Yamashita - Co-Founder, Chair and Interim CEO
Based in Berkeley, California, Lynn focuses on strategy and implementing the vision of ZuKool.
Lynn is a lawyer and has practiced in San Francisco, London and New York.
Lynn holds a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center,
a Master of International Affairs in International Economics and China Studies from Columbia University,
and a BA cum laude in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College.
Kazuki Arita - Co-Founder, Director and President of Technology and Innovation
Kazz focuses on setting technology directions for ZuKool and leads ZuKool's R&D team in Tokyo.
Prior to co-founding ZuKool, Kazz was the IT Strategist Manager at First Co. Ltd., a privately-held Japanese IT company,
and was responsible for creating and implementing its e-marketing business model, including its innovative mobile phone marketing campaign services.
Prior to First, Kazz was the web site manager for Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., the world's second largest printing company;
co-founded a web site production company as well as co-founded a direct marketing flower business that provided e-business support to Japanese flower retailers.
Kazz is also an Ikebana master, Japanese tea ceremony master and master calligrapher.
Kazz holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Dokkyo University, Japan.
Miles M. Ishigaki - Co-Founder, Director and Chief Music Theorist
Miles leads ZuKool's music research group from Fresno, California.
Miles is a Professor of Music at California State University, Fresno, where he has taught applied clarinet, music appreciation and music theory since 1987.
His current research projects include Inspired Accidents:
The Interaction of Intuition and Analysis in Teaching Music Performance and Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet:
Interpretations by Great Artists.
Miles holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Oklahoma and received a
Master of Music from Colorado State University and a Bachelor of Music Performance and Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Northern Colorado.
Ian S. Wilson - Chief AI Architect
Ian leads ZuKool's AI engineering group and is responsible for designing and evolving the AI architecture for ZuKool Music.
Ian has close to 15 years of experience in the area of artificial intelligence.
Prior to joining ZuKool, Ian founded Emotion AI Inc., a Japanese developer of software that mimics human emotional behavior,
and for three years was the technology lead for the Japan office of iNAGO Inc.,
a leader in natural language interfaces, where he developed a Japanese natural language understanding system.
Prior to iNAGO, Ian was an advanced AI scientist with Katrix Inc.
for two years and designed and developed fully autonomous AI character technology for military applications
as well as a virtual reality game for Disney and a dance simulation game for Meta Creations Inc.
Ian is an invited expert at the W3C working group on emotion representation,
a member of the AI Interface Standards Committee of the International Game Developers Association
and has presented his work at American Association for Artificial Intelligence symposia.
Ian holds a BSc (honors) in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Westminster, London.
Cecilia K. Matsuoka - Tokyo Operations Manager
cc manages our Tokyo operations. Prior to joining ZuKool, cc was a senior associate in the sales and marketing division of Three One Systems, Inc.,
a Tokyo-based computer systems development and services company,
where she created the sales team's strategic business planning model to track and forecast performance,
as well as designed and implemented a customer tracking database to improve its customer reporting system.
Prior to that, cc was an analyst in the communications and high tech group of Accenture in San Francisco.
cc holds a BS in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
