Kaoru Joho

 Kaoru Joho founded TableCross Inc. while she was still in her third year at the Rikkyo University College of Economics. After serving as a friendship ambassador to further deepen ties between the cities of Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, in Japan, and Orlando, Florida, in the US, she came up with the concept of TableCross to simultaneously tackle two issues: child poverty, which she witnessed first-hand while spending time in a developing country, and reducing restaurant advertising costs, which she learned about as a part-time restaurant worker.   

TableCross Inc. is a philanthropic app for restaurant reservations. When a customer makes a restaurant reservation with the app, the restaurant is charged an advertising fee of ¥180 per diner. ¥30 of this fee then goes toward the cost of school lunches for poor children in seven countries via nonprofit organizations. So far, more than 100,000 school lunches have been provided this way. The benefit for the restaurant is that under the success-fee model of TableCross Inc., they don’t have to pay advertising fees in advance. 

Kaoru represented Japan in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Student Entrepreneur Awards and was awarded the Resona Bank Award in the Campus Grand Prix Contest. She is often invited to speak by a wide range of companies, business associations, universities and NGOs. 

“Child poverty is not something that can be solved with a one-off charity event. By turning a profit, I want TableCross Inc. to be able to make a sustainable contribution to society.”