Hibiki Ikenoue 池之上 響
Build the foundation, empower creation
I build circuits, code, and companies to deliver creators' passion to their users — hacking the boundaries between layers to ship value by the shortest path.
About me
Hibiki Ikenoue 池之上 響
Co-founder & CTO, Cocoreach Inc.
Shibaura Institute of Technology — Electrical Engineering,
Electrical Robotics Course (3rd year)
Born in 2005. A soldering workshop in elementary school sparked my interest in making things; experiencing the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake sparked my interest in robots that help people in disaster zones. I spent six years in the robotics club at Rakusei Junior & Senior High School (Kyoto), leading team "Orion" to the national championship and the world championship (international joint team) at RoboCupJunior 2021 Rescue Maze, and becoming the youngest high-school team ever to clear the verification course at Tsukuba Challenge 2022.
Supported by many companies and foundations through those years, I decided to give back by supporting creators and engineers myself. I now study electrical engineering and robotics at Shibaura Institute of Technology while running Cocoreach Inc. as co-founder & CTO. My desktop PCB fabricator "Alnilam" was selected for NEDO's NEP entrepreneurship program (2026).
Awards
- RoboCupJunior 2021 Worlds — SuperTeam champion
- RoboCupJunior 2021 Rescue Maze — national champion
- RoboCupJunior 2022 Rescue Maze — national runner-up
- JETRO J-StarX Stanford Student Innovator Course
- JETRO Beyond Japan Zero to X, 3rd cohort
- Stanford University d.school bootcamp.44
- Startup Founders Program, Hongo Tech Garage (UTokyo)
- Geekten 2022 — top prize, hardware & embedded category
- NEDO NEP entrepreneurship program 2026
- Presented at an IEEE RoboSoft 2026 workshop
- Science Castle 2021 — THK Award, Best Development Prize
- Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) Summer School 2024
- RED program (Musashi University) — 2018 UWA Perth, 2019 Stanford
- Tsukuba Challenge 2022 — cleared the verification course
- Shibaura Institute of Technology merit scholarship (two consecutive years)
- In-depth coverage on TV Tokyo's school documentary "THE Meimonko"
Skills & Languages
- Software
-
Python C / C++ / C# Assembly Go ROS 2 Unity AWS GCP
- Web (Flask / HTML / CSS)
- AWS (EC2 / Lambda / S3 / Cognito)
- OptiTrack / MATLAB
- TypeScript / JavaScript (learning)
- Signal processing
-
GNSS-RTK LiDAR OpenCV / YOLO LoRa Localization
- Designed a 920MHz communication protocol for ~10,000 devices operating in dense crowds
- CAD, circuits & fabrication
-
Fusion 360 / Inventor / Eagle KiCad CNC / 3D printing
- Circuit design: MCUs / power supplies / motor drivers
- Reads & writes G-code (CNC / laser / 3D-printing programs)
- Electro & electroless plating / MIG welding / soldering
- Design & development experience on factory mass-produced products
- Business
-
Startup founding / pitching / IP strategy
- Selected for NEDO NEP & JETRO J-StarX
- Product development management
- Patent filing
- Languages
-
Japanese / English
- TOEIC 930
- TOEFL iBT 84
- Interpreted multiple times at an event with 250,000+ attendees
- Development negotiations with factories and companies in China & Taiwan
Projects
Cocoreach Inc.
2025 – presentWork at the company I co-founded
I co-founded Cocoreach Inc., which develops LUMION, a purchase-prediction system built on emotion-analysis technology. As deputy CEO and CTO, I handle everything from corporate planning to technology selection and overall direction of development.
LUMION
2024 – presentA purchase-prediction system that visualizes audience excitement through biometric sensing
A system that embeds biometric sensors into penlights and other live-event merchandise and quantifies audience excitement in real time from heart rate and electrodermal activity. I lead its technical development as deputy CEO and CTO of Cocoreach Inc.
Alnilam
2021 – presentA desktop PCB fabricator: the board you design by day is in your hands the next morning
A machine that fabricates double-sided printed circuit boards on a desktop in a matter of hours, combining CNC milling with a proprietary electroless plating process. Development began with a problem I ran into in high school; the project has since been selected for NEDO NEP and is now moving toward commercialization.
Science Castle 2021: 5th THK Award, Best Development Award and Encouragement Award
Mintaka
2021 – 2023An autonomous robot that set the youngest-ever record at Tsukuba Challenge 2022 as a high school team
We entered the Tsukuba Challenge, where robots drive autonomously through real city streets, as a high school team. As development leader I directed the autonomous robot Mintaka, and we passed the confirmation section as the youngest participants in the event, while still in high school.
Tsukuba Challenge 2022: passed the confirmation section (youngest-ever record, as high school students)
Bellatrix
2018 – 2022A Rescue Maze robot, developed entirely from scratch, that won the world championship
A competition robot that autonomously navigates a maze-like disaster site to find victims. We developed the mechanics, circuits, and software entirely from scratch, using no commercial kits, and won the RCJ 2021 national championship and the SuperTeam title at the world championship.
RoboCupJunior 2021 Rescue Maze national championship: 1st place
Career
- 2005 Born.
- 2011 Experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake from Sapporo; seeing robots work in the disaster zone drew me into engineering.
A soldering workshop in elementary school got me hooked on making things. - 2018 Entered Rakusei Junior High School and joined the robotics club.
Founded robot-competition team "Orion" and led it.
Traveled to Perth (UWA) on Musashi University's RED overseas program. - 2019 Competed in RoboCupJunior 2019 (soccer beginner class).
Pitched to sponsors and won the Futaba Electronics Memorial Foundation youth grant.
Traveled to San Francisco (Stanford University) on the RED program. - 2020 The national tournament we were set to enter was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Moved the club's equipment home and built a remote development workflow so the team could keep going through school closures.
Used the closure to write a 300+ page training handbook and set up the club's education system. - 2021 RoboCupJunior 2021 Rescue Maze — national champion.
At the world championship, formed an international joint team with Germany and Russia and won the SuperTeam competition.
Started developing "Alnilam", a desktop PCB fabrication kit.
The project won the THK Award (Best Development Prize) at Science Castle 2021. - 2022 RoboCupJunior 2022 Rescue Maze — national runner-up.
Youngest high-school team ever to clear the Tsukuba Challenge verification course with autonomous robot "Mintaka".
Top prize at Geekten 2022 (Alnilam).
Led a revamp of the school-festival exhibition — attendance grew sharply and it won the best exhibition award.
Proposed and created the robotics club's official mascot character. - 2023 My work was covered in an in-depth documentary on TV Tokyo's "THE Meimonko".
Competed in hackathons and events including Geek CAMP and NT Kyoto.
Built a street-legal electric kick scooter, a self-playing melodica, and more.
Developed robots for disaster-site work, informed by conversations with defense officials. - 2024 Graduated from Rakusei Senior High School; entered Shibaura Institute of Technology.
Attended TalTech Summer School (Estonia).
Selected for JETRO J-StarX Stanford Student Innovator Course — traveled to the US.
Completed Stanford d.school Design Thinking Bootcamp #44. - 2025 Co-founded Cocoreach Inc. (co-founder & CTO).
Global PBL summer program at Pusan National University's College of Engineering.
Joined JETRO Beyond Japan Zero to X (Los Angeles).
Joined UNCHAIN (formerly Conexus), an AI startup, as an early member. - 2026 Selected for the Startup Founders Program (SFP) at the University of Tokyo's Hongo Tech Garage.
Selected for NEDO NEP (entrepreneurship program).
Presented at the IEEE RoboSoft 2026 (Kanazawa) workshop "Bridging Soft Robotics and Human-Computer Interaction to Open New Potential Spaces".
Contact
Feel free to reach out by email.