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Third: laws and regulations x Digital Hackathon

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Digital Agency

As the third part of the Ideathon Hackathon Series, the "laws and regulations" x "Digital" Hackathon (hereinafter referred to as the "Hackathon") was held from Wednesday, February 5 to Thursday, March 6, 2025. This page provides details of the event and award-winning works. For information on the event program, etc., which was publicly available at the time of inviting participants, please visit "laws and regulations" x "Digital" hackathon. We were able to collect feedback on the .

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Event Details
  3. Introduction of Works
  4. Related Information

1. Overview

"laws and regulations" × "Digital" hackathons were held to improve the efficiency of legislative affairs, provide easy-to-understand laws and regulations information to citizens, and create new businesses utilizing laws and regulations information.
On the first day of the hackathon, held on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, Digital Agency introduced examples of "laws and regulations" and "digital" initiatives, explained a prototype of laws and regulations APIs, and presented initiatives using generative AI. In addition, a workshop was held in which participants interacted with staff working in Digital Agency, including administrative personnel, lawyers, and engineers, to come up with ideas for development and brush them up.
In this hackathon, a total of about 130 participants conducted intensive development over a short period of about one month. Works were submitted by 28 teams, and each team made a presentation on Thursday, March 6, 2025.

A group photo of Mr. Taira, Minister for Digital Transformation, the three judges, and the hackathon participants. Mr. Taira, Minister for Digital Transformation and the three judges are seated in the front row. Mr. Taira, Minister for Digital Transformation and Mr. Yagita, the judge, are holding a board labeled

Judge

  • Takahiro Yasuno Representative of Machinery Management, LLC
  • Mr. Shinao Honda, Section Chief of laws and regulations Examination Section, General Affairs Division, Children and Families Agency
  • Itsuki Yagita Ltd.

Award Results

Each award, the title of the work and the name of the team in parentheses.

Grand Prize

  • Lawsy(Lawsy)

Excellence Award

  • Legal Camera Assistant (NPClouder)
  • Commons LawScopeAI Prototype (Government Innovators)
  • Legal Definition Finder (team and Yusuke Momochi)

Category Award

  • Legal Affairs Efficiency Award Legal Document AI Editor (Panda)
  • Laws and regulations Data-sharing Award Notice and notice Lawtext Extension
  • Laws and regulations Metropolitan Data-Utilization Award Building generation AI that complies with the Building Standards Law (automatically generates optimal buildings that comply with two laws, the City Planning Law and the Building Standards Law, using our own AI)

2. Event Details

[Day 1]

  • Date: February 5, 2025 (Wed)
  • Venue: Hybrid format of face-to-face venue and online venue
  • Contents of the day: The details are as follows.

The hackathon opened with an opening speech from Tomiyasu in Director-General, Digital Agency.

Director-General Tomiyasu of Digital Agency is giving the opening address at the hackathon site.

Mr. Nakano of Director for Policy Planning, Digital Agency, explained the "laws and regulations" x "digital" initiatives.
Rules as Code (RaC) is a concept that aims to make policymaking and administrative operations more efficient and streamlined by describing laws and regulations in a machine-readable format. This concept is currently being studied and verified in other countries. I explained how current Japanese laws are formulated and how laws and regulations and other data are provided, including the "Digital Legislation Roadmap" proposed by Digital Agency.

For the "laws and regulations" x "digital" initiative, please refer to the laws and regulations material used at the " x Digital Workshop" held on Friday, March 8, 2024.

A scene introducing the efforts of the National Tax Administration Agency's Nakano Ward Director for Policy Planning. A digital legislative map is projected on a screen next to Nakano Director for Policy Planning.

Mr. Ueda, an attorney at law from Digital Agency, introduced the efforts of Digital Agency regarding the generation of draft articles using generative AI. He mentioned in what situations national government officer can use generative AI when drafting bills, the points that were devised when draft articles were generated using the latest model of generative AI, the outputs, and future challenges.

An example of the generated AI is projected on the screen beside Mr. Ueda, an attorney from Digital Agency, introducing the effort.

A report was made by Kiei Co., Ltd., which is entrusted with the Digital Agency project, on the development of a legal affairs support tool using generative AI. It explained the development carried out with Digital Agency in fiscal 2024, including a demonstration using generative AI in the beta version of , a analog regulation check tool provided by Digital Agency.

A scene where two people in charge of Kiei Co., Ltd., which is entrusted with the project of the National Tax Agency, are introducing the development of a legal affairs support tool using generative AI.

Hirono, a Digital Agency system engineer, explained the laws and regulations and other information (e-Gov laws and regulations search) currently provided by Digital Agency, the laws and regulations API-prototype public test (3rd) , and the laws and regulations API-prototype that can be tried by participants of the laws and regulations × Digital hackathon, in preparation for development at the hackathon. (What is laws and regulations API-prototype: laws and regulations API-prototype public test (3rd) 3. How to use )

Hirono, a system engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, explaining Digital Agency's system. An outline of laws and regulations's API program is projected on a screen next to Hirono.

After that, a workshop was held in which Digital Agency staff members went around each table of the hackathon participants to come up with ideas and brush up on the work to be developed.

A staff member of the Digital Agency works around the table of the hackathon participants and supports them in coming up with ideas for the work to be developed.

The workshop was also held in a hybrid format of a face-to-face venue and an online venue. In particular, at the face-to-face venue, there was a lively exchange of opinions between Digital Agency staff and participants.

A scene of Kawano Director in Digital Agency taking the participants' table and supporting them in coming up with ideas for the work to be developed.

As a hint for coming up with ideas, we used a workshop sheet prepared by Digital Agency and exchanged opinions on what would be possible if we combined it with the current issues, needs, and laws and regulations.

A view of the entire room of the hackathon venue. At the table of the participants of the hackathon, each team is talking about the idea of the work to be developed.

[Day 2]

  • Date: Monday, February 10, 2025
  • Format: Online
  • Content of the day:
    Digital Agency staff and others held online interviews with teams of their choice, and in response to concerns about development policies received from participants, they introduced existing services and gave advice based on their experience in legal affairs.

[Day 3]

  • Date: March 6, 2025 (Thursday)
  • Venue: Hybrid format of face-to-face venue and online venue
  • Contents of the day: The details are as follows.

A one minute video introducing the work developed by each team after about a month of development was shown, and the judges, Mr. Yasuno, Mr. Honda and Mr. Yagita, gave comments on the work.

Judge Yasuno commenting on the presentation at the hackathon.
(Mr. Takahiro Yasuno, Representative of Machinery Management LLC)

Judge Honda commenting on the presentation at the hackathon.
(Mr. Fukaao Honda, Section Chief of laws and regulations Examination Section, General Affairs Division, Director-General Children and Families Agency

Judge Yagita commenting on the presentation at the hackathon.
(Mr. Itsuki Yagita, CEO of Legalscape Co., Ltd.)

Mr. Mr. Taira, Minister for Digital Transformation also attended the award ceremony. In his opening remarks, Mr. Mr. Taira, Minister for Digital Transformation expressed his gratitude to the participants for the development of the work. He then explained the significance of the implementation of the digitalization AI as the Japanese population continues to decline and labor shortages grow, and that he hoped the participants would continue to deepen their friendship through the hackathon community in order to solve social issues.

Thai Minister for Foreign Affairs David Lippert delivering an address from the podium at the hackathon venue.

After that, the results of one Grand Prize, three Excellence Awards, and one Division Award (Legal Affairs Efficiency Award, laws and regulations etc. Data Provision Award, laws and regulations etc. Data Utilization Award) were announced, and the judges commented on the reasons for the awards.

Finally, Mr. Minister Taira gave closing remarks. He said that the hackathon this time was a very meaningful hackathon, and that he would like to adopt the submitted works that can be adopted by the government after confirming their safety, and that he would like to continue to quickly promote the implementation of digital and AI by the entire government, with Digital Agency playing a central role. The hackathon ended with these remarks.

A general view of the Hackathon venue, where Foreign Minister Lippert was giving an address from the podium. Approximately 100 participants were seated and listening to Foreign Minister Lippert.

Approximately 100 participants attended the face-to-face meeting. Even after the results were announced, some teams asked the judges for individual feedback, and the event was filled with enthusiasm throughout.

Throughout the event period of this hackathon, we will hold the "laws and regulations" x "Digital" hackathon. We were able to collect feedback on the API prototype and other information through the opinion form published on the laws and regulations event page and the participant questionnaire conducted after the event. Digital Agency plans to continue to promote the development of laws and regulations and other data while taking into consideration the opinions received from everyone.

3. Introduction of works

Points of Attention Regarding Works

  • Neither Digital Agency nor the judges make any guarantee as to the performances, qualities, etc. of the developed products, deliverables, etc. developed by participants.
  • Digital Agency does not authorize, publish, or distribute services completed through this project as official services.
  • The work introduction was prepared by the secretariat with reference to the work explanation materials submitted by the participating teams. The image of the work is an excerpt from the work explanation materials.

Award-winning works

Grand Prize

Lawsy(Lawsy)
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    Screen image of the winning work
  • Overview of the work
    • A deep research tool specializing in laws and regulations for private sector, public officer, politicians, etc. who are not familiar with laws and regulations. It integrates laws and regulations information with related information such as policies, judicial precedents, national assemblies, etc., making it easy to collect, organize, and explain information, and improving the efficiency of laws and regulations research work.
      When a user's query is received, the system optimizes the query, performs Web and laws and regulations searches, organizes highly relevant information through a re-ranking process, and outputs a report. The report has also been published as OSS.
    • Lawsy · GitHub
  • Value created for society
    • It is now possible to collect, organize, and explain appropriate laws and regulations information without relying on experts. Project promotion, policy formulation, legislative work, and laws and regulations that require regulatory reform surveys will be facilitated, contributing to accelerating the speed of social change.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • It is innovative in generating voluminous reports faster and with higher accuracy than typical Deep Research.
      We use advanced search capabilities and domain-knowledge-powered generative AI to leverage laws and regulations datasets for semantic search and automatic report generation.
  • Auditor Comments
    • This is a convenient tool that solves the need in the world to compile a large amount of laws and other documents into a report.
    • It captures the needs for in-depth investigation of reliable sources in legislative work, etc., and seems to be able to solve various problems. I've used it and have seen high quality results.
    • It has already been open-sourced, and I expect it to be customized in the future.

Excellence Award

Legal Camera Assistant (NPClouder)
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    Screen image of
  • Overview of the work
    • It is a work that provides a AI service to help lawyers search for a laws and regulations. Just by sharing the notes of the hearing with the client to the app, the AI will consider and suggest a laws and regulations to investigate and provide a link to the relevant article in the e-Gov.
  • Value created for society
    • Reduce the burden of attorney laws and regulations searches, enabling attorneys to spend more time on their professional duties, resulting in improved legal services
  • Novelty, etc.
    • Hearing memos can be transferred from multiple media, including text files, Excel files, images, and screen captures. Since laws and regulations information is acquired through the e-Gov laws and regulations APIs, the latest laws and regulations information can be referenced.
  • Auditor Comments
    • It's also a handy tool for lawyers, who sometimes can't recognize a laws and regulations they're not familiar with.
    • The feature that reduces the time and effort to reach the laws and regulations in that it supports handwritten notes is highly appreciated.
    • It's presented as a piece for lawyers, but could be expanded by others who deal with legal issues as well. I think the possibilities would be even greater if anyone could suggest what kind of laws and regulations something is relevant to when writing a note.
Commons LawScopeAI Prototype (Government Innovators)
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    Screen image of the work
  • Overview of the work
    • This work visualizes issues in the current laws and regulations and presents specific amendments for the general public and government officials related to legislation. By integrating AI, official laws and regulations information, and the latest public opinion information, social issues are displayed from the contents entered by the user, and related laws and regulations is specified and amendments to laws and regulations are presented.
  • Value created for society
    • By automating and streamlining the "one step ahead" stage from consensus building to actual law revision, we will realize more effective laws and regulations improvement proposals and speed up the resolution of social issues.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • Use APIs, RAG, and topic clustering technology to obtain the article content of e-Gov laws and regulations APIs Obtain the latest full text of articles and use it to present the problems of the laws and regulations concerned, the degree of divergence from the will of the people, the points of revision, and the revision proposal.
  • Auditor Comments
    • It is highly appreciated that it shows a consistent process from incorporating opinions to proposing a bill to revise the law.
    • The use of a generative AI to compare the degree of separation between the will of the people and the text is distinctive and a wonderful effort.
    • In addition, I think that the key point in the future will be the strategy of how and to whom this system can be realized, so I hope that it will be further developed based on that point.

Legal Definition Finder (team and Yusuke Momochi)

  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    The screen image of the work
  • Overview of the work
    • This is a work that provides a function to quickly browse definition provisions in national government officer for laws and regulations in charge of legal affairs, legal affairs of companies, and legal professionals such as lawyers.
    • Legal Definition Finder
  • Value created for society
    • In the current situation, the definition rules of laws and regulations are described only at the first appearance of a defined term, and it is not known where the definition rules are established, and it takes unnecessary time and effort to search for defined terms. By utilizing this work, the defined terms of each law provided in the "e-Gov laws and regulations APIs" can be displayed instantly, and the above unnecessary time and effort can be reduced.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • This work is an innovative work in that it intensively extracts and displays defined parts in articles by searching laws and regulations names.
  • Auditor Comments
    • The definition rule is extremely important, and there are some national government officer who have a hard time spending a long time researching the definition rule. It is wonderful that they have solved the problem by approaching it clearly, and it is highly evaluated.
    • The problem to be solved is clear, and the solution is very easy to use.

Category Award

Legal Affairs Efficiency Award
Legal Document AI Editor (Panda)
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    The screen image of
  • Overview of the work
    • Works such as "laws and regulations AI," "Example AI," "Public Comment AI," and "Web Research AI," which provide functions for creating high-quality legal documents through the cooperation of multiple AI and people with different abilities, specialties, and positions.
  • Value created for society
    • This work makes it possible to create legal documents while using the power of AI using the latest digital technology such as laws and regulations APIs and large-scale language models.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • Laws and regulations APIs are used in "laws and regulations AI", an AI that allows you to make professional remarks while quoting real laws and regulations using RAG (search-extension generation). laws and regulations APIs are also used.
  • Auditor Comments
    • This is an elaborate work that is very typical of 2025. The idea of an editor in which AI agents and humans, each having their own strengths, discuss things in cooperation was very good.
    • I have a close image of the work of an administrative official who reconciles opinions from various standpoints, and I felt that the AI to collect cases is highly accurate, and can be used as a supplementary tool to fill gaps in policy making and to accumulate cases.
Laws and regulations Data-sharing Award
Notice and release Lawtext Extension
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    Works selected for the laws and regulations Data-provision Award Lawtext Extension of Notice and Release Screen image showing the text of the Point on the left and the XML structure of the Point on the right.
  • Overview of the work
    • Laws and regulations Defines the XML schema of notifications for data maintainers, and structures notifications from textual documents into XML.
  • Value created for society
    • The open-source software " Lawtext " can convert laws and regulations conforming to the laws and regulations standard XML schema into XML, but it cannot convert notifications into XML.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • This work, following Lawtext , automatically digitizes public documents for general purposes. Using Lawtext , it is utilized in strengthening the expandability of laws and regulations date.
  • Auditor Comments
    • Notifications that specify the actual rules in the field of society It is a new and wonderful work in that it tries to make it into XML.
    • It was highly evaluated in that it could be provided in a unified format against the current situation where there is no structured data of notification / release itself.
Laws and regulations Data-Utilization Award
Building generation AI that complies with the Building Standard Law (An optimal building that complies with two laws, the City Planning Law and the Building Standard Law, is automatically generated by our own AI)
  • Screen image of the development of the work (extracted from the work description material submitted by the team)
    Screen image of a work selected for the laws and regulations Metropolitan Data-Utilization Award
  • Overview of the work
    • A work that provides a building generation AI that instantly generates optimal buildings that meet the Building Standard Law so that real estate developers can assess the value of the land and verify the feasibility. By simply clicking on a lot number on the map, a building suitable for the lot number (in compliance with the Building Standard Law) is automatically generated, and floor plans and shadow maps that comply with sun shadow regulation are also output.
  • Value created for society
    • The value of land is determined by what kind of building will be built there, but advanced expertise on the Building Standards Act and building design is required for its verification. This work makes it possible to instantly estimate the value of land and is expected to improve the transparency of real estate distribution.
  • Novelty, etc.
    • This work is an innovative work in that it is equipped with a unique building generation AI that reads the Building Standards Act from scratch and uses complicated mathematical processing such as diagonal lines, shade and sky.
  • Auditor Comments
    • A work with a high degree of perfection, in which complex processing is done on the backend, and real use cases are captured.
    • It is significant in terms of automating tasks that used to be performed manually by experts and visualizing rules from documents, and has a large social impact.

List of developments

List of works (PDF/7,659 kb) Please see from .

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