The Data Reality Workshop: Turn Your Business Data into Actionable Systems
Event Overview
When small teams scale, the problem is rarely that they “need more AI.” The real issue is usually more practical: customer data is scattered, documents are hard to search, reports are built manually, spreadsheets do not match, and software tools do not talk to one another.
Before investing in automation, analytics, or AI, teams need to understand what data they already have, which workflow is creating friction, where business value is leaking, and what kind of technical solution is actually worth building.
The Data Reality Workshop is a hands-on event designed to help founders, operators, and product builders move from vague technology interest to a clear problem statement and a realistic solution path. The session combines Monju Labs case studies, structured problem-framing exercises, and live technical feedback on selected participant challenges.
Instead of focusing on trends, the event focuses on engineering reality: clean data logic, process mapping, system architecture, feasibility, ROI, and the difference between solutions that look impressive in a demo and systems that can support real business operations.
Who is this for?
Startup Founders: Need to validate a product, data workflow, automation idea, or AI-enabled feature without wasting runway.
SMB Owners and Operations leaders: Rely on fragmented spreadsheets, paperwork, customer records, or manual reporting.
Product managers and business builders: Need to choose tools, define requirements, or align technical teams around a realistic roadmap.
Data/AI-curious professionals with concrete projects: Want to understand how AI systems are actually designed beyond prompts and trends.
Agenda
16:00 Check-in & Open Networking
Come early to start networking with peer founders and innovators.
17:00 Opening
Welcome, introductions, and a brief walkthrough of the event objective and schedule.
17:15 Case Showcase: From Messy Data to Operational Intelligence
Monju Labs presents two short anonymized case studies showing how real businesses move from fragmented information to usable systems. The focus is engineering logic: data sources, bottlenecks, system design, business impact, and what made the solution viable.
17:35 Problem-Framing Workshop
Participants will work in a small group using a structured canvas to define the problem, solution direction, next validation step, and prepare a concise case pitch ready for feedback.
18:20 Pitch-for-Solution & Live Feedback
5-minute case pitch from selected participants about bottlenecks, followed by 10-minute technical feedback from Monju Labs.
19:20 Closing and Open Networking
20:00 Door Close
About Workshop
In this Problem-Frameworking Workshop, participants work in small groups using a structured canvas: business pain, current workflow, available data, friction point, value of solving it, first technical action, and implementation risk.
Each group will choose a workshop topic, to frame the problem, solution direction, feasible next action and ROI, and prepare for one concise challenge pitch to receive feedback from Monju Labs with data readiness, likely architecture, build-vs-buy guidance, ROI considerations, and next-step recommendations.
Possible Workshop Topics
Document & Knowledge Intelligence - searching, summarizing, and extracting answers from internal documents, reports, contracts, or manuals.
Data Quality & Operational Dashboards - cleaning spreadsheets, removing duplicates, validating KPIs, and preparing reliable data for BI.
Forecasting & Planning - using historical sales, demand, inventory, or operational data to predict future needs.
Recommendation, Matching & Personalization - matching customers, products, content, candidates, or listings using behavioral and metadata signals.
Workflow Automation & System Integration - connecting fragmented tools, reducing manual reporting, and automating repetitive process steps.
About Instructor
Rodrigo Gutierrez, Co-Founder & CTO, Monju Labs
Rodrigo Gutierrez is Co-Founder & CTO of Monju Labs, a Tokyo-based data intelligence studio. He is a senior data scientist and systems engineer with 15+ years of experience building AI, data engineering, and business intelligence systems across Japan, the U.S., and Europe.
Organizers
alliz
alliz is a member-led career mentorship community helping students and early-career professionals in Japan design stronger career paths through events, mentorship, and shared learning. For this event, alliz connects practical business challenges with hands-on technical education and founder/operator peer learning.
Monju Labs
Monju Labs is a Tokyo-based data intelligence studio that designs and builds data, AI, and automation systems for real business operations. We help teams transform documents, workflows, and fragmented datasets into decision-grade intelligence through retrieval systems, forecasting, recommendations, anomaly detection, and secure system integration.
TIB Membership
Please download the TIB app, register as a member, and obtain your QR Code for entry.