Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Head office: Tokyo, Japan; President: Tatsuo Higuchi) has announced that the company's dietary education app "Deliciously Illustrated SketchCook - a Nutritious Experiment with Google" (SketchCook) has been recognized by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology （MEXT） with an "Award for Companies Promoting Experience-based Learning Activities for Youth 2019" (Judges' Commendation). Since its introduction, SketchCook has also been recognized with several PR and other awards in Japan and abroad.

【List of Awards】

◇ Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Award for Companies Promoting Experience-based Learning Activities for Youth

Judges' Commendation

https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/mext_00157.html

◇ Public Relations Society of Japan, PR Award Grand Prix 2019

Award Category: Silver

https://prsj.or.jp/association/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/praw2019_open.pdf

◇ International Public Relations Association (IPRA), Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA), 2019

Award Category: Technology (Agency) Top Award

https://www.ipra.org/golden-world-awards/winners/

◇ PR Awards Asia 2019

Award Category: Japan/Korea PR Campaign of the Year (Silver) / Technology (Gold) /CSR Gold)

https://www.prawardsasia.com/shortlists/2019/#

◇ 6th Digital Ehon (Picture Book) Award

Digital Educational Materials Prize • Special Judge's Prize (Soichiro Hirai) / General Division • Finalist

http://www.digitalehonaward.net/sakuhin/number/6th/

■About SketchCook https://sketchcook.jp/

【SketchCook Overview】

Adopting machine-learning technology provided by Google and data from extensive Rakuten Recipe*1 archives, SketchCook uses photographs of children's illustrations of their favorite meals to identify menu items and transform them into images resembling actual dishes. Emphasizing the importance of nutritional balance, the dietary education app also provides recipes for the main dishes and suggestions for side dishes to achieve optimum nutritional balance.

1. 1Recipe site posting more than 1,400,000 recipes operated by Rakuten Inc. (Head Office: Tokyo, Japan)

【Background and activities】

In recent years, reduced opportunities for families to eat meals together and fewer parents who cook with their children are factors contributing to solitary or missed meals and unbalanced nutrition, also making it difficult for children to learn about proper dietary habits and nutritional balance. Otsuka Pharmaceutical, long engaged in developing nutritional supplements and dietary education, launched the SketchCook application using AI technology in May 2018. The app provides an opportunity for children to learn about good dietary habits and nutrition in an entertaining way in the context of parent-child communication.
Since its introduction, SketchCook has been adopted for use in educational settings including as a teaching resource for home economics courses in elementary schools.

Aiming to educate children as the leaders of the next generation about the importance of food and nutrition, Otsuka Pharmaceutical will continue to promote SketchCook not only for use within the home but also in collaboration with local governments and other organizations throughout Japan.