Japan’s Dawn Cafe brought a new trend in upgrading the percentage of physically and mentally impaired individuals all over the country and even overseas by employing them as “pilots” to robots who serves as staff at the said cafe.
The cafe, which employs at least 50 workers with physical and mental impairments, offers job opportunities to those who find it difficult to work outside their home.
It is located in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district and was formally opened on June and a result of a project experiment conducted and initiated by Kentaro Yushifuji, a digital entrepreneur and co-founder of Ory Laboratory, a company that makes robots.
Around 20 miniature OriHime robots who are controlled by persons with disabilities at home roam around the cafe and entertains customers via cameras, speaker and a microphone to allow their operators to communicate with customers attentively.
The cafe’s launch is partly a step for different non-government organizations in Japan who are advocates of employment for people with disabilities. They are also in a present debate in upholding accessibility and inclusion of disabled persons in the workforce.
The cafe’s launch is also comes as a promotion for Japan’s Paralympics due to open on August 24.