Inauguration Address: Academic Flexibility and
Social Responsibility

Kazuo Hagimoto
President, IEICE Communications Society
Junji NAMIKI

 

First, I wish to express my deepest sympathy to everyone affected by Great East Japan Earthquake.
As president of the IEICE Communications Society from May, I wish to devote my energy to make my term a fruitful year for each member of the society. The activities of the Communications Society make up a pillar of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE). At the same time, these activities have contributed both academically and industrially to the further development of the communication infrastructure that is essential for daily life. Through the society, discussions about a variety of possibilities are fostered, consensus is created, and the efforts of members in ushering in high-value technologies are recognized. The Communications Society is recognized as a highly active society by Asia as well as the rest of the world.
The critical role that a communication infrastructure plays and the challenges in which it is involved, not just technologically but also socially, is once again on display as a result of the great East Japan earthquake in March. The Communications Society has a major role to play by engaging the challenges directly and contributing our collective wisdom toward their resolution. Looking back on the last several years, there has been a greater frequency of disasters wrought by earthquakes and tsunamis in the Pacific Rim region. I suppose that there are many people who cannot help but feel powerless before awesome power of nature, even as different countries undergo recovery and attempt to devise preventive measures. Of course, not only does communication infrastructure provide us both daily convenience and economic efficiency, it has worked to be robust for providing continuous services during major disasters. Along with pursuing various possibilities, exploiting technologies that form the backbone of actual societies, and being active in major industries, the Communications Society is playing a role through its activities in supporting the creation of an information-oriented society. The information-oriented society is developing rapidly through networks that transcend distance, time, and even languages and cultures. The development is taking place in an intellectual field in which knowledge and records from the past are passed on to the future. We are developing an infrastructure in which society and individuals are managed, used, and passed on as “vital things.” When managing such “vital things,” convenience and reliability are trade-offs in some cases. While the risk of losing these “vital things” becomes more diverse, I believe that the era of cloud computing can clearly provide a social infrastructure that is more resistant than conventional infrastructures against disasters. The cloud can provide frameworks for efficiently and reliably managing personal and public information needed for a mature information society. Therefore, I believe that the Communications Society’s activities should proceed along a shared foundation of flexibility and a sense of responsibility so that a variety of ideas and efforts can be gathered to engage and solve national problems, such as the energy problem and catastrophes. Such efforts are propositions that can be shared by all advanced countries, including Japan. I believe that activities in this area will improve not only the activities of the Communications Society, but also the activities of Japan and the role of Japan in the information age.
The data communication technologies have been supported by the progress in the physical layer, which includes wireless technologies and optical fibers. If you think about it, these technologies that now utilize the Ethernet and IP packets, as well as Web technologies have fostered the development of an infrastructure that can distribute and share contents such as TV broadcasts and copyrighted works while protecting the copyright of these contents. Japan has built a rich broadband environment that stands at the forefront of the world. In the area of input/output technologies, it has also developed cutting-edge device technologies, such as display systems, for exploiting this broadband environment. Meanwhile, in terms of creating cloud computing architectures that provide services exploiting the use of data in the Internet, such as Web search, Japan lags behind the U.S. when it comes to the total system challenge of creating the cloud, which offers overwhelming convenience while audaciously cutting into existing frameworks. In this cloud framework, supported by people’s curiosity and a sense of unity, a great wealth of contents is being developed that allow them to enjoy social networks by generating, transmitting, and sharing information through the Internet.
As we turn our eye to social activities, we find that global warming and the scarcity of resources such as fossil fuel – problems that accompany the growth in human population – have become international issues. It is critical that the activities of the Communications Society also respond to such changes in the social environment with flexibility and a sense of responsibility. Establishing both a convenient and enjoyable social environment and perspective that protects the things vital to individuals and society will lead to a true information society. I cannot help but think that the unprecedented disaster we currently face, which has even resulted in the breakdown of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, is injecting a profound sense of purpose into our activities. As we have been advocating, it is essential that we consider environmentally-friendly energy resources and shift to a social infrastructure that uses energy effectively in order to bring about an Earth-friendly green society. Despite this goal, what makes concrete measures hard to implement is the convenience sought by consumers. From this perspective, it is critical that we work to transform the crisis that we currently face in Japan into a blessing. We must concentrate our wisdom, discuss directions and technological challenges, and propose solutions as an academic society.
The source of the Communications Society’s activities is spontaneous freedom, such as curiosity and the ability to dream. We dream of allowing people who are even far away to speak anywhere, anytime. When that dream becomes a near-reality, we will be able to make progress beyond what we imagine with the creativity of many people. However, when what have been convenient to use suddenly become unavailable, a major barrier is created. The East Japan earthquake stopped trains in Tokyo, even though the city is far away from the disaster areas. Telephone service was interrupted, creating inconvenience and increasing people’s anxiety. Even so, learning from the experience of the Kobe earthquake maintained the reliability of the communication infrastructure to the extend that allowed people to use e-mail and voice mailboxes.
IEICE and the Communications Society occasionally publish feature articles and special issues concerning the daily convenience of communications and their protection during disasters and emergencies. This disaster, like previous disasters, has shown that we could not make a completely satisfactory solution. I believe that it is critical to be prepared and be responsible for maintaining a minimal level of communication when disaster strikes. At the same time, it is critical to have a flexibility that can incorporate voluntary supplemental methods. We have been calling for collaboration among industry, academia, and government for a long time. In the midst of competition to claim hegemony, which is the worldwide trend, engineering that only debates academic issues is a lonely enterprise. Daily convenient tools are progressing in reality from the previous “made-in-Japan” era to an era in which knowledge from around the world are gathered into products, as represented by the PC, which makes use of de facto standard and mass-produced LSI chips and software. The Communications Society no longer has direct connections to such fields and products. I believe that the expansion of this trend is one reason behind drop in members from industry.
The path we must take is to create fundamentally new ideas, and steadily create communities that form majorities to support these new ideas. After the Second World War, Japan developed as a country to supplement America’s economic activities. The moment that parity in part between the two countries could be glimpsed, Japan was encouraged to become independent in globalization, a two-edged sword, and in the formation of an information society. In today’s world, in which developments by academia and industry play a vital role in forming worldwide consensus on topics such as standardization, I want to use my position to continue to shape the Communications Society as a place where all members can mobilize their abilities, by providing truly valuable services through our activities, which feature a close partnership between industry and academia as one of their characteristics, so that a match between the pursuit of technology and social activities can continue.
Recently, I participated in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Technical Committee on Communication Systems. Along with honoring the visions of our predecessors, we stimulated one another through a great deal of discussion of the next 50 years. I want to devote my energy to forming and extending the social infrastructure that solves the issues faced by civilized societies including Japan, based on a philosophy of flexible yet tenacious adaptability, and enjoy the fruits of this endeavor with members of the society.