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Hatsune Miku Creator Talks in London Wednesday October 10

Hiroyuki Itōh, the creator of Hatsune Miku and the Vocaloid phenomenon, will speak at a seminar at London's Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation on Wednesday October 10. Places are free but must be booked in advance at the 'booking form' link on the event page. The venue is near to Baker Street station (map) and the event will run from 6 p.m. to 7.45 p.m., followed by a drinks reception until 8.45 p.m.

According to the site, the seminar "will focus on the leadership, values, culture and organisational structures required for successful innovation... Mr Hiroyuki Itōh, CEO of Crypton Future Media, creator of the globally popular ‘vocaloid’ Hatsune Miku, will talk about how he built an innovative consumer-generated media business against the backdrop of traditional Japanese business culture." Itoh will share the event with another speaker, Dr Jaideep Prabhu, also talking about innovation.

A day after the London seminar (Thursday October 11), Itoh will speak at a symposium in Edinburgh entitled "Cultural Policy and Creative Industries in Japan and Scotland," described here. As of writing, it is not clear if there are any places available to the public. The event is described at the link as "Invitation Only." ANN called the Daiwa foundation, which is co-organising the Edinburgh event, and was told there might be tickets available from the University of Edinburgh, but there is no link at the university website. The Edinburgh event will be at the Playfair Library, Old College, Edinburgh University, running from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., with Itoh appearing in the second of two panels.

Itoh has talked elsewhere about how he created the Vocaloids from "singing software." He said, "In 2004, I created our first [Vocaloid] software, Meiko, and attached a cartoon character to it. I did that because a software that [simulates] a person singing is not an essential need to human beings. I figured, in order for it to appeal to people and be loved by people, it needed to have a human touch, and something like a cartoon character was the right tool for that. It had a reasonable amount of success, and of course that led up to the concept of Hatsune Miku."

Correction - An earlier version of this article wrongly gave the day of the talk as Thursday. In fact, the talk is on Wednesday. Many apologies for the mistake.