After the devastating earthquake in Japan in 2011, it became apparent that there was a need for a communication platform that would help better connect people in such situations. Out of this need, the Line 
Messenger platform was launched and has since evolved into a popular social platform with users spread across the globe. The platform also has a well-supported SDK and API, enabling developers to extend their creations to hundreds of millions of users.
We recently worked with the development team at Line in Tokyo, building out several bot related scenarios that use Cognitive Services on the Line Messenger platform. The resulting hacks ranged from bots that detect what’s on your plate, to bots that can recognize a user’s face, and even a bot that helps people learn and practice new languages.
The group of around 20 developers had little experience on Azure going in, but within a few hours they were able to develop, host, and launch their Cognitive Service enabled bots. If you’re interested in trying it out, Line have released a Getting Started kit on their Github, and more info can found on the LINE Engineering Blog.