Hello from Chang Hyun Lee, an ML engineer developing the recommendation system for LINE VOOM, and Heesung Cho, a Media Platform server developer. We recently traveled to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in Tech Week 2024, an internal event held from September 2 to 6. We also gave a presentation at the Tech Conference program. We experienced and learned a lot on-site, and we're excited to share our vivid impressions with you.
Tech Week 2024
The Tech Week event, themed "Global all-engineer collaboration forum", was held at LY Corporation's Tokyo Kioicho office. Developers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, who are working on LY Corporation's products and LINE app-related services, participated in this event.
The event was divided into three parts: Tech All-Hands Meeting, Tech Conference, and Hack Day. Let's take a closer look at how each part was conducted.
Tech All Hands Meeting
During the Tech All Hands Meeting, we were able to review the mid- to long-term milestones of the LY Corporation Group. In particular, the presentation by Eui-bin Park, the Executive Corporate Officer and CTO of LY Corporation Group, provided insights into the ongoing projects. It was a valuable opportunity to understand the areas and strategies currently being focused on in the global market. Occasionally, reviewing ongoing projects from a broad perspective helps us identify the areas we need to focus on, setting and adjusting our work direction, which significantly enhances work efficiency. While I usually focus on the details to improve the service I'm responsible for, the Tech All Hands Meeting allowed us to confirm the overall direction for all members, making it very beneficial.
Tech Conference
Sessions
The Tech Conference featured over 120 sessions over three days, both online and offline, with simultaneous interpretation in three languages (Korean, Japanese, and English). More than 100 speakers generously shared their achievements and know-how. The main topics included sharing project improvement know-how and introducing platforms and usage methods.
There were many sessions introducing platforms that employees need to use, allowing us to think about how to use them in the future. After sessions of interest, I had the opportunity to ask speakers questions and engage in discussions, learning about technologies that could be applied to the services or systems I manage. It was a valuable time. Among the various sessions, let me introduce the sessions we presented.
Vector Database Presentation - Chang Hyun Lee
Recently, the LINE VOOM service underwent a major project to transition to a real-time recommendation system. Many colleagues dedicated themselves day and night, resulting in a transformed recommendation system that provides much fresher content than before. I shared the trial and error experiences and know-how gained during this process in a presentation titled "Applying a Large-Scale Vector Database for Real-Time Recommendation Systems." The presentation mainly covered the introduction and performance of the vector database Milvus Cluster. We plan to publish a more detailed article about the presentation on this blog soon, so please stay tuned.
The Tech Conference sessions were broadcast globally online as well as offline. The large audience made the presentation even more exciting. After the presentation, I had the pleasure of engaging in meaningful conversations with colleagues interested in vector databases. Meeting colleagues with similar interests and exchanging diverse and valuable insights is one of the highlights of the Tech Week event.
Live Streaming Platform Presentation - Heesung Cho
Our Media Platform team prepared and presented a total of five sessions at this event. I conducted the session introducing the live streaming platform. Our team has been working hard to enable employees to easily apply and offer live streaming features in their services. I focused on explaining the features provided by the live streaming platform in a simple and intuitive manner.
All presentations at the Tech Conference were simultaneously interpreted. I'd like to share three tips for presentations with simultaneous interpretation that I learned during this presentation.
- Speak slightly slower than usual, and prepare scripts with short sentences.
- Unlike Japanese, which has a similar word order, English has a different word order. If you mention content outside the prepared material, it may be partially interpreted sequentially.
- Pause for a few seconds before turning the page after finishing speaking.
- After turning about five pages, I realized I was turning the page immediately after speaking the prepared script. Many online viewers were listening to the interpreter, and the page was turning before the interpreter finished speaking. I tried to count to three silently before turning the page.
- During the Q&A session, when answering questions from the audience, restate the question before answering.
- There is a high chance that other attendees didn't hear the question properly. This can happen if there's no separate microphone for the questioner, or if the session is conducted in Korean with interpretation prepared only for Korean to Japanese and Korean to English, but an attendee asks a question in English, leading to improper interpretation.
- In one session, a Korean attendee initially asked a question in Japanese and then switched to Korean midway. Although the session was prepared in Japanese, the answer was given in Japanese. In such cases, it's good to restate the question to ensure it is properly conveyed to the audience.
Consultation booths
In addition to technical presentations, consultation booths were also set up at the Tech Conference. Over three days, a total of 30 booths were operated. Visiting the booths allowed us to learn about and experience various platforms operated internally, providing insights into platforms and technologies that could be beneficial for our team.
Among the various booths, let me introduce the one I (Heesung Cho) participated in operating.
Media Platform booth - Heesung Cho
In addition to presenting, I also participated in preparing and operating the Media Platform consultation booth. The colleague who presented with me worked hard to prepare both the presentation and the materials for the booth, which was reassuring.
The Media Platform booth was operated for two days during the Media Platform presentations. Some visitors came for consultations to transition existing features to the platform, while others visited out of curiosity about what Media Platform is.
We primarily provided guidance in English at the booth. However, since some participants only spoke Japanese, we received support from a translation app. Additionally, a colleague in the neighboring team, who was proficient in Korean, English, and Japanese, provided significant assistance. This experience reinforced my determination to invest more in foreign language studies.
HackDay
The two-day hackathon "HackDay" was filled with creative and practical ideas that emerged from intense ideation processes. After development, participants had 90 seconds to present and demonstrate their projects. Many projects made various efforts to capture attention in a short time.
Among the teams, the "Let's KAKIGORI" team, which made an impressive presentation with a shaved ice machine, was memorable. They even won the Fun Award. There was also an opportunity to experience the projects at the venue. Although I couldn't try the "Let's KAKIGORI" team's work due to a long wait, I did experience a unique project called "Galaxy Relief", which checks the urgency of a restroom need by recognizing facial expressions.
Although I didn't participate directly in the hackathon, just observing it made me feel the passion of many colleagues. Overall, I sensed that many colleagues are very interested in integrating AI into services. A review of HackDay participation will be uploaded to this blog soon, so please look forward to the vivid impressions.
In conclusion
Tech Week 2024 featured various events to break the ice among participants. One of the most memorable moments was meeting a Taiwanese member, whom I had collaborated with online, in person in Japan.
As the theme of Tech Week 2024 was "Global all-engineer collaboration forum", it was a valuable opportunity to meet colleagues from around the world and exchange a wealth of knowledge and know-how. I also felt proud to be developing the same services as passionate colleagues active worldwide.
Next year, I plan to participate not only in presentations but also in Hack Day. Based on what I saw, heard, and learned at this Tech Week, I look forward to presenting more advanced services and products. See you in the next Tech Week review article!