About Me

I'm a blind creator and coder known as cat or yncat. I work as a full-stack engineer while pursuing various activities on a whim.

Basic Information

A front-facing photo of myself with plants in the background

Name: Yukio Nozawa

Also known as: cat, yncat

Born: September 2, 1997

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Active since: 2008 - Present

Biography

  • 2005: Got my first PC when I started elementary school. I wasn’t interested at all. I was probably playing with toy trains and stuff.
  • 2006: Started touching the PC little by little.
  • 2007: Discovered I could play games on PC and got hooked. Ventured into the internet and programming to play more games.
  • 2008: Started creating websites on my own and publishing my works.
  • 2010: Created my first full-length RPG.
  • 2012: Released several works in English for worldwide distribution.
  • 2013: Enrolled in “Special Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired, University of Tsukuba” (sooo long name in English…).
  • 2013: Completed and released the largest full-length RPG to date. Then stepped away from active game development upon entering high school.
  • 2014: Teamed up with classmates to digitize various school systems for fun. Years later, I would establish Act Laboratory with the same classmate.
  • 2015: Completed the full English version of the long RPG I released two years prior. It was extremely challenging as I had to translate about 9,000 lines.
  • 2016: Enrolled in Keio University Faculty of Environment and Information Studies. Joined a game development club where I created music and sound effects.
  • 2017: Joined what is now Rise & Play Inc., doing transcription work while creating peripheral tools to make the work more convenient.
  • 2018: Participated in the Access Blue internship program hosted by IBM Japan.
  • 2018: Joined the “Audio Game Center” project by DDD Project and made our debut at Tokyo Game Show. “Screaming Strike,” which I created as stress relief because I hated high school entrance exams, was finally showcased at TGS after 5 years.
  • 2019: Traveled to the US for the first time to attend CSUN Assistive Technology Conference 2019.
  • 2019: Exhibited at Tokyo Game Show 2019 as Audio Game Center. Created the ultimate real-world experience: “eliminating mosquitoes flying around your ears with a spray controller.”
  • 2020: Presented graduation thesis on web accessibility.
  • 2020: Joined freee K. K. as a new graduate. Was assigned to develop shared authentication and authorization infrastructure for products.
  • 2021: Held the exhibition “Audio Game Center +” at Ginza Sony Park as Audio Game Center.
  • 2022: Completed a project to fully replace freee’s authentication and authorization infrastructure from Ruby On Rails to Go microservices. This was a massive project that had been ongoing for about 4 years since before I joined.
  • 2022: Transferred to the freee Card unlimited team. Subsequently designed and released 3D Secure version 2.0 authentication, virtual card issuance features, and other functionalities.
  • 2023: Exhibited at BitSummit in Kyoto as Audio Game Center.
  • 2024: While continuing at freee, also worked as a development staff member for a mobility assistance app provided by mitsuki Corporation.
  • 2024: Held the exhibition “Audio Game Center + CCBT” at CCBT in Shibuya. Appeared at related events including hackathons and talk shows.
  • 2025: Exhibited at Osaka Expo for a limited time as Audio Game Center.
  • 2025: Appointed as Engineering Manager, taking on a leadership role. Despite the urge to code being irrepressible, I continue living as a playing manager who also writes code.
  • 2025: Received company recognition for fast-paced development leadership.