Student Internships

• Elia Danieli (Italian)
• Wai Tang (Chinese)
• Andreas Maier (German)
• Myung Ko (Korean)
• Ewald Ramp (Dutch)
• Alvaro Drukaroff (US citizen, Spanish resident)

• Ryohei Nezu (Austrian)
• Rita Vitorino (Portuguese)
• Mike Spaans (Dutch)

Elia Danieli

In English:
I am a student of computer science at the University of Bologna, Italy. I arrived on 1st August 2003 and am working at Asahi Kasei Corporation in Atsugi for one year to develop the Italian acoustic model for the VORERO project.

I am very happy to join this internship program: I think this is a good and unique experience and I have Asahi Kasei to thank for this opportunity. I'd also like to thank the other students and my colleagues for their welcome on the first days I was here and for making me feel at home. Living and working in Japan is like a dream and I hope I will get to know a lot of Japanese people and get to tour this beautiful country.


In Italian:
Studio informatica all'Universita' di Bologna e dal primo agosto 2003 lavoro come tirocinante presso Asahi Kasei. Il mio tirocinio ( che durera' uno anno, fino alla fine di luglio 2004) consiste nello sviluppo di un "modello acoustico" per la lingua italiana.

Sono veramente felice di aver preso parte a questo progetto. Questa esperienza si sta rivelando incredibile e sento di dover ringraziare Asahi Kasei per l'opportunita' concessami.

Vorrei anche ringraziare gli altri studenti che come me stanno frequentando questo tirocinio e gli altri colleghi giapponesi per il caldo benvenuto,che mi ha permesso di adattarmi perfettamente alla nuova vita, non facendomosi sentire troppo la mancanza dell'Italia. Vivere e lavorare in Giappone e'sempre stato il mio sogno e spero di riuscire a conoscere piu' persone possibili e visitare questa stupenda terra.

I am a university student at Imperial College, London, studying Information System Engineering. My job in Asahi Kasei is Software/Hardware Co-design, so I am working in exactly the same field I am studying. Asahi Kasei is like a big family. People are nice and they help whenever we have problems!!! We now have internship students from 7 countries all over the world. All of us enjoy our stay and are having fun here. I learned how to cooperate with people and am gaining practical experience of what I have learned from university. I am really happy to work in Asahi Kasei. It is a memorable experience that I will not forget for the rest of my life.

I am a student of computer science in Germany. I successfully applied for an internship at Asahi Kasei. I am training a German acoustic model, which shall be used in the VORERO software.

This is my first travel to Japan and as well my first longer stay in a foreign land. So I was quite anxious to travel here, because I did not know what it would be like. I was really impressed with how warm my welcome was. There even was a welcome party when I arrived here. Everybody is really nice to me and I can't complain about a single thing, even if I can't speak Japanese that well.

I like the work and I can learn new things every day. So I learn a lot about speech recognition and how it is applied. I learned basics at the university, but it is quite different to see how it works in a real application. I am really enjoying the work here and try to do my best.

But my experience here is more than just work. I made friends with the other students as well with several Japanese. Almost every weekend we have plans to do something. I have already seen quite a lot of Tokyo, even though it is about 40 km away from us. Another thing that I did not expect is that we have the chance to go to Japanese classes every Thursday and Saturday. So I have been able to improve my Japanese a lot since I came here.

Life here never gets boring and it is very fun to work at Asahi Kasei. I am really glad, that I had the chance to come here and have this wonderful experience.

I am a computer science student from University of Waterloo, Canada. I came to Asahi Kasei to train the Korean acoustic models. From the first day, every day has been a new experience. I've been meeting people who I had never met, traveling places that I had never been to, and learning skills that I had never known. I'm often amazed upon realizing I've only be in Japan for a few months when Canada already seems to be such a distant memory. Time seems to be passing so fast.

As an internship student, you will take an important part of a project, sometimes work is stressful and you will have to work hard. However, you will be provided with the best equipment to work with in the most beautiful office with great colleagues who want to help you in every way. Our office is located in top floors of the tallest building in Atsugi. It has got a great view of the whole city and Mt. Fuji.

Every single day has been joyous at Asahi Kasei, and I am sure it will continue to be. I'd like to thank all the staff who have looked after me in preparation of the internship process. Thank you for giving me this great opportunity. It'll be one of the most unforgettable experiences I'll ever have.

I am a computer science student from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and currently busy with an internship at Asahi Kasei in Atsugi concerning voice activity detection using speaker's lip images. I will be staying here for a year, and I am really looking forward to it. Now 2 months have passed since I arrived, and thanks to the friendly people who live here and the great efforts of my colleagues, I am already calling Atsugi home.

I usually don't make too many expectations when I go to a new place, since most of the time the reality turns out different anyway. I could not have been more right in this case. All the things I am learning and experiencing, both at work as well as in general, are amazing, and I would never have been able to expect most of them.

I am really thankful for having gotten this opportunity, and my only hope is that I can be as valuable for Asahi Kasei as I know this experience will be for me.

I have been already working in Asahi Kasei for a year, in an internship with the title 'Spanish Voice Recognition'. I will remain in the company for another year developing a multilingual acoustic model, which is quite a challenging task. But I am exited about it, mainly because the experience I've had during the first year has been so rewarding.

It is hard to describe in just a few words how nice the company has been to me, and all the good things that I have found in this country.

I am a student at the University of Applied Science in Vienna, and was born and raised in Vienna. My major is computer science and my work at Asahi Kasei is to implement and analyze the VORERO speech recognition engine on an embedded system.

It has always been my dream to gain working experience in Japan, therefore I really enjoy every single working day at Asahi Kasei. I never dreamed of being able to see Mt. Fuji during work - but on a very clear day, the view of Mt. Fuji from my desk is better than I have seen in photographs. Everyone in the company is so nice and helpful and I am gaining a lot of technical experience.

I want to thank everyone at Asahi Kasei for such a wonderful time and also all the international students who help me feel comfortable in Japan. Japan is a very beautiful country and people here are very friendly. Thank you very much - domo arigatou - vielen vielen dank!

Ola! I am a Portuguese university student, from the Technical University of Lisbon, taking a degree in Computer and Informatics Engineering. I came to work in the Voice Recognition Project of Asahi Kasei in August 2003, in a 1-year internship program to develop Portuguese acoustic models to be implemented in VORERO speech recognition middleware.

Being my first time in Japan, or even Asia, from the moment I arrived I was astonished with everything: the food, the nice different places I visited, the particular traditions, the culture, the people, and of course the language barrier - but a smile is universal :). I can't say it has always been easy. There are up and down moments, and work can be stressful at times, but that's what makes this experience so challenging and very rewarding.

I want to thank Asahi Kasei for giving me the great opportunity of joining their team, as I have learned and experienced so many things in such little time; and thank everyone for being very welcoming and being always there for me. There is a saying, "If you can't build a castle alone, contribute with one brick." I look forward to my "brick" being a valuable contribution to this team project!