Honorary Member

Yoshinori SAKAI

Professor Yoshinori Sakai received B.E., M.E., and D.E. from University of Tokyo in 1969, 1971, and 1974, respectively. The same year, he joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (currently Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) and became primarily engaged in the research and development of image processing and image communication systems in the corporation’s laboratory. In September 1987, he became an associate professor, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and was promoted to a full professorship in November 1990. As the university shifted its emphasis to its graduate school, he held a series of offices there: professor, the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, director of Global Science Information and Computing Center, and director of the library. He retired from the university in March 2012. Currently, as a professor emeritus of the same university, Professor Sakai continues to devote himself to development in the fields of electronics, information and communication. At the same time, he serves as the director of the Tokyo Shibuya Study Center, the Open University of Japan/specially appointed professor, helping to provide learning opportunities to the general public and to realize a lifelong learning society.   While he was a student in the University of Tokyo, he received his Ph.D. for research into the signal processing of radar signals. At the laboratory of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, he was engaged in research and development of PCM-FDM transmission systems, facsimile communication networks, and audio and video teleconferencing systems. With this diverse research background, he came to work at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Here he undertook research from both application and network perspectives, working on multimedia processing for communications, multimedia and network information search technology, video streaming control, and content distribution network technology. He has been a leader in research on application-oriented networking technology, which aims at the integration of all of the technologies mentioned above. While at the university, he created a new control technology theory and design theory for communication networks and information systems that handle video information or content, and trained researchers and engineers, including many doctoral students, in this field. Many of these later went on to become outstanding professionals in industry and academia.   His activities are not confined to the university. He served as a member of the Information and Communications Council and that of the Information and Communications and Posts Administrative Council, both of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, at the time when the core technology for the information communication network, an important social infrastructure, underwent a drastic technical transition from telecommunications technology to Internet technology. In these capacities, he became deeply involved in a broad spectrum of policy-making regarding Japan’s information communication, including interconnection and tariff issues. He was also involved in selecting individuals who were to receive public awards, including selecting the recipient of the Japan Prize conferred by the Japan Prize Foundation, and those who were to receive national invention awards from the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation. Within the IEICE, he played a leadership role by holding a series of important posts, including director of finance, president of the Communications Society, director of journal and transactions, as well as being the president of the IEICE itself.   For these achievements, he received the Achievement Award from the IEICE, the Niwa-Takayanagi Best Book Award from the Institute of Television Engineers, the Best Paper Award from the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award, and the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award. He was also made a fellow by the IEICE and the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers.   As mentioned above, Professor Sakai’s contributions to the development of the electronics, information and communication fields and to research, education and society through his wide ranging activities spanning industry, government and academia are truly remarkable. We thus recommend that he be granted the status of a fellow, honorary member.