- The following is content from the press release -
~Amazon Echo Show 5 (2nd generation) powered by Amazon Alexa, verified its usefulness in housekeeping and childcare~.
Amazon is pleased to announce that it will begin a demonstration experiment with Saga City (Mayor: Hidetaka Sakai) in Saga Prefecture on the usefulness of its voice assistant (Amazon Alexa) for housework and childcare. This initiative is part of Saga City's "Men's Participation in Housework and Childcare Promotion Project," and Amazon will provide Amazon Echo Show 5 free of charge to approximately 30 fathers with children under 3 years old living in the city for a demonstration experiment on the usefulness of Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, for housework and childcare. The company will provide 30 fathers with children under 3 years old living in the city with an Amazon Echo Show 5 free of charge. Prior to the experiment, Amazon Japan employees will participate in a roundtable discussion for fathers to be held on July 18 (Monday, national holiday), where they will demonstrate how Alexa can be used for housework and childcare. The results of this experiment will be announced at the end of September.
Demonstration Experiment Overview:
Summary: Echo Show 5 with Alexa from Amazon
( http://www.amazon.co.jp/echoshow5 ) to fathers with children under 3 years old in Saga City free of charge. Participants will be asked to use Alexa for housework and childcare, and the usefulness of Alexa will be investigated and verified. The results of the verification will be announced by Saga City and Amazon at the end of September this year.
Implementation schedule: Scheduled to begin in early August 2022; actual inspection period is approximately 2 weeks.
Target: About 30 fathers with children under 3 years old living in Saga CityOthers: For more information on the roundtable discussion to be held prior to the demonstration experiment, the application guidelines for the demonstration experiment, and the survey method, please refer to the Saga City website ( https://www.city.saga.lg.jp/ ). The number of participants in the demonstration experiment will be closed as soon as the maximum number of participants is reached.
Mayor Hidetaka Sakai of Saga City commented on this initiative as follows
Saga City has set "Promotion of Gender Equality in the Home" as one of its priority initiatives, and has been working to raise awareness of the cooperation and sharing of household chores and childcare between men and women, and to hold lectures and provide information that will lead to practical implementation. This year, the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law was revised to make it easier for fathers to take childcare leave, further increasing the need to support fathers' participation in housework and childcare. We hope to identify various issues and needs related to fathers' participation in housework and childcare and make the best use of these findings in future measures."
Theunis Scheepers, Country Manager, Amazon Alexa International, Japan, said, "We are very pleased to be working with Amazon Alexa.
Amazon actively promotes parental leave as a benefit to support employees raising children, and we are pleased that Saga City is taking this approach to engage fathers with young children in childcare. Through innovations such as Alexa and the Echo series, we offer a variety of services to make the lives of our customers raising children more convenient and comfortable. Alexa can answer your questions and requests, keep track of your baby's growth, and support your daily life even when your hands are busy. We are pleased to combine the knowledge and expertise we have gained through our past efforts with the innovations created by our Device & Service business to promote fathers' participation in housework and childcare together with the city of Saga."
About Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa, the cloud-based voice assistant that is the brain behind Amazon's Amazon Echo series of smart speakers, is constantly evolving and getting smarter in its natural language capabilities and accuracy, with new features being added every day. Whether at home or on the go, customers can talk to Alexa to get news, weather forecasts, check their schedules, call loved ones, and more, and control compatible smart appliances, making everyday life more convenient and comfortable. Developers and companies can utilize a variety of free and publicly available self-service APIs to incorporate Alexa into their products and services or develop new Alexa skills. Currently, there are more than hundreds of millions of Alexa-enabled products in Japan and abroad, and Amazon will continue to offer more devices and services to make Alexa available in a variety of locations.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles. Customer-focused, Passionate about Creation, Committed to Operational Excellence, and Long-Term Thinking Amazon aims to be the most customer-focused company on the planet, the best employer on the planet, and the safest workplace on the planet. Customer reviews, 1-Click ordering, personalized recommendations feature, Amazon Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire Tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the products and services Amazon is pioneering, For more information about Amazon, please visit Amazon Newsroom ( http://amazon-press.jp ) and About Amazon ( http://www.aboutamazon.jp ) From.
Amazon, which has been actively involved in the field of childcare, including winning the Excellence Award for its Fire Tablet Kids Model at the BabyTech® Award Japan 2021, will provide its smart speaker "Amazon Echo Show 5" as part of Saga City's male housework/childcare triangle promotion project. Amazon will provide Amazon Echo Show 5 free of charge and conduct a demonstration experiment on the usefulness of the Amazon Alexa voice assistant for housework and childcare.
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