The archive · Business Models · Product decision · 2020–2023
Good Baton puts sick-child daycare booking in parents' hands — ACC 2023 Innovation GP
Azukaruko-chan turns phone-only sick-child daycare booking into a real-time smartphone service — 275,000 reservations, ACC 2023 Innovation Grand Prix.
Good Baton Inc.
What it had to solve
In Japan, a child with a fever cannot go to nursery, and working parents rely on municipal sick-child daycare rooms — yet a Cabinet Office survey found these facilities were used at only about 30% of capacity. Good Baton's own survey of 300 working mothers found 88% had never used the service and 75% barely knew it existed; reservations had to be made by phone during staffed hours, with no way to see openings.
How it works
When a child wakes with a fever, a Japanese working parent faces a frantic morning: nurseries refuse sick children, and municipal sick-child daycare rooms are scarce, underused and booked by telephone during staffed hours — with no way to see which rooms have space.
Good Baton, founded in July 2017 by obstetrician-gynecologist Masaki Sonoda, attacked the problem from all three sides. Its Azukaruko-chan service, launched in 2020, lets parents search facilities, register, check real-time availability and book or cancel from LINE or the web around the clock. Facility staff stop answering phones and filling paperwork; municipalities get one dashboard managing every contracted room in their area.
The scale of the problem was as much awareness as friction: a Cabinet Office survey found national utilization around 30%, and Good Baton's survey of 300 working mothers found 88% had never used sick-child daycare and 75% barely knew it existed. Adopting municipalities therefore pair the system with posters and pamphlets distributed through nurseries.
By the 2023 63rd ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS the service was in 182 facilities across 10 municipalities with more than 95,000 registered children and 275,000 cumulative reservations. The Creative Innovation jury gave it the Grand Prix unanimously, praising it as the approach society needed most.
Why it lands
- Real-time availability turned a blind phone lottery into a search-and-book experience parents could use at 6 a.m. with a feverish child.
- Serving parents, facilities and municipalities together meant every party had a reason to support adoption, not just the end user.
- It treated underuse as a design and awareness problem, pairing the reservation system with local publicity instead of just building software.
- Working through municipal contracts let one system become shared infrastructure across an entire region's daycare rooms.
- Starting with sick children gave the company a template it could extend to postpartum care and other child-raising services.
What it did
By the time of its award in late 2023 the service was live in 182 facilities across 10 municipalities, with more than 95,000 registered children and over 275,000 cumulative reservations; two months later registrations had passed 100,000 and bookings 300,000. At the 2023 63rd ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS the Creative Innovation jury gave it the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award (Grand Prix) unanimously — with the jury chair saying it was what society needed most and urging that the ACC brand help it connect with local governments.
What you can take
Public-service underuse is a design problem, not a demand problem: real-time, phone-free booking made sick-child daycare usable — serving parents, staff and municipalities at once let the model scale.
Since then
The ACC Grand Prix was followed by continued municipal expansion — registrations passed 100,000 children and cumulative reservations 300,000 by December 2023 — and Good Baton began developing a sister service for postpartum care bookings, crowdfunding its development in 2023. The company, renamed from Connected Industries to Good Baton that year, framed the win as validation that its mission — a society where people can give birth and raise children with peace of mind — could be advanced by design rather than by policy alone.
Sources
- Sick-child daycare reservation service Azukaruko-chan wins ACC Creative Innovation Grand Prix
- Good Baton launches Azukaruko-chan operation in Matsumoto City
- ACC 2023 Creative Innovation category results and jury review
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