Meet Our Colleagues

Basic profile

Name: Vincent Leonardo
Joined Year: 2016
Current Role: Software Engineer, Group Manager
Technology that my team uses: Java/Python, AWS, Tensorflow, PyTorch, Paddle, Sudachi
What I like to do for fun: playing basketball, photography, reading manhwa, watching random informational videos

Please give us a brief introduction of yourself.

Vincent joined Works Applications 6 years ago and has worked in both the Singapore and Japan offices.

I was always amazed at how technology makes our lives much easier. I am always on the lookout for new technology that allows us to accomplish more with less (effort). I enjoy creating some simple tools/scripts to make my daily life more enjoyable. In a sense, it is kind of inline with my work in Works Applications where I create a product that will cut down the time spent on monotonous work allowing users to spend more time on more meaningful tasks. Especially after we tap into deep learning technology, it enables me to provide more value to the customer while I get the chance to enjoy working with new and fascinating technology.

What kind of product are you currently working on?

I am developing our own Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine to complement our ERP products, allowing our clients to digitize their (business) documents easily. The recent Digital Transformation (DX) trends in Japan have created a need for a good Japanese OCR engine. As the Japanese OCR market is still relatively niche, we decided to build our own OCR engine to provide cost-effective solutions for business document digitization. I am using deep learning to create an OCR engine that is robust enough to handle documents of any format. I am also working with other members from our AI&NLP Lab to capitalize on our company’s strong expertise in Japanese linguistic processing to strengthen our OCR engine.

How is it like working with members of the AI&NLP Lab that is located in Japan?

Since I had previously worked in AI&NLP Lab’s office in Japan itself, there is no issues with working with the members even after I have relocated back to Singapore. Even before WFH implementation, we have always been communicating across Tokushima & Tokyo offices, so we are quite used to remote communication.

What are some of the challenges you faced?

My only challenge has been the language barrier, but the members have all been very friendly and
patient. The members also make an effort to speak English; members fluent in both languages also help in translating technical or complex terms in meetings/discussions. The overall experience has been great as the members have embraced the global workplace culture.

What is the culture of Works Applications like?

We asked him about the culture of Works Applications.

Being a B2B business, our company’s main goal is to provide products/services that can improve the corporate productivity. Despite being corporate-oriented, the company still allows us great freedom in exploring technologies that are relatively new in the market, especially in the adoption of various AI tools & technologies. With that we can achieve more ground-breaking solutions to provide higher value to our clients & society.