IEEE Tokyo Section

No.103

[DEC 28, 2016]

Message from the Tokyo section chair at the end of two year term
2015-2016 Tokyo Section Chair
Kazuo HAGIMOTO  (President & CEO of NTT Electronics)

I am Kazuo Hagimoto of NTT Electronics, and it was a great honor I have been served as Tokyo Section Chair of IEEE for 2015 to 2016.
I wish to express my gratitude here for all your support and understanding, which allowed me to successfully finish my term of the office.
I have been playing an active role mostly in the interested Societies since 1984 when I became a member of IEEE. I gave presentations at conferences, I exchanged my opinions and convened some leading international conventions with other IEEE members.
Besides the technical field, I lead some cross-sectional themes in regional activities since I was appointed Tokyo Section Chair. I belong not only to IEEE but some Japanese academic societies and I would like to tell you a few impressive points in order to show my appreciation through my two years’ experience.

The number of the members of Tokyo Section is nearly 8,000 and it is almost the same size as active IEEE Societies. There are three large roles for IEEE. One is “leading the academic research and engineering field, and offer some social gatherings (science congresses, exhibitions, and publications)”. Another is “standardization as to support the engineering field”, and “the cultivation of human resources who support technological development”. Individual special fields for academic interaction and standardization activities are inter-organ activities for the Society and IEEE. So I have been focusing most of my attention on human resource empowerment in general. Society actions which are based on communities lend support for assembling conferences and activating the function for standardization. I believe these actions are based on activities of developing our community and human resources.

Japan is one of fast-aging societies and Tokyo section members are no exceptions. This is a social problem in Japan. Tokyo section, with Japan Council, supports young engineers’ challenging minds and women researchers’ activities. These movement spread out to other sections and we hope great success for youngers and women. Of course we also appreciate experienced senior members who support in a proactive manner.

Japanese engineers in IEEE have been very active in their field and made great steps in research and standardization. They are recognized and assessed as fellows. A lot of members are candidates for the upcoming fellows, so that I wish they aspire to achieve this status. That will powerfully help encourage younger members. In the R10(Asia Pacific Region) activities, Tokyo Section has had 60 years of history, while in many regions including India, younger members and students have recently very active. We, Tokyo section members, would like to increase communication with these Asian members. Tokyo section sponsored MAW (Metro Area Workshop) at Waseda University in 2015. We organized an attractive program for the IEEE members who belong to companies and we deepened our exchanging experiences with the executives of IEEE. The organizations which belong to the Tokyo section have received the IEEE Milestone Awards, and that has served as a powerful encouragement for the middle-aged engineers. Actually, Japanese organizations have currently received almost IEEE Milestone Awards in R10. This fact proves Japanese leading role in Asia and we are very proud of it. Tokyo section will continue to support them further on.

The 21 century is called age of Asia. Technology race of the world becomes intense. In these two years, I realized again the fact that global perspective has become an important factor and this looks more complicated. IEEE is the unique organization which has local activities as well as worldwide ones. I wish to make effort to lend support for enhancing the value of your contributions for the society and communications among IEEE members.

From 2017 I hand over my mantle to Professor Sasase in Keio University in good conscience. I would like to ask for your continuous activities and guidance for the Tokyo section. Your continued support and understanding will be greatly appreciated.

 

Notice from IEEE Tokyo Section Office

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