| " 2002 AIST Showcase Symposium on Human Information Technology (HIT2002)" took place at Marriott Hotel, Santa Clara, California on June 11, 2002, co-sponsored by JETRO San Francisco and pl-x Inc.
The major objectives of the symposium were placed at: 1) introducing AIST, 2) exploring possibilities of technology transfer based on achievements of IT related researches and 3) promoting joint research projects. The symposium was a great success with approximately 200 participants, among them included product planning and development staff of local IT companies mostly from Silicon Valley, technology transfer consultants, university researchers and so on.
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Dr. Naohiro Soga, Trustee of AIST
Dr. Soga firstly expressed his appreciation to the participants on behalf of AIST, and introduced the outline of the organization. He presented the objectives of the symposium, focusing on technology transfer and proposed the necessity of close collaboration between both business entities and academic organizations in Silicon Valley for the future development.
Prof. Tetsuhiko Ikegami, Trustee of AIST
Prof. Ikegami argued that this symposium stemmed from various reformative movements in Japan: starting from a series of the structural reforms in Japan, reorganization of governmental agencies into independent administrative institutions, publication of "Science and Technology Basic Plan", establishment of the Council for Science and Technology Policy under Cabinet Office to on-going reforms of national universities. He also emphasized the importance of industry-academia-government collaboration in Japan. Secondly, he overviewed R&D projects currently in progress at AIST and expressed his wishes for the establishment of further cooperative relationships with the U.S. He closed his speech by underlying AIST's mission to pursue new courses for a public research institute aiming at pioneering the field of market-oriented R&D projects.
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*HIT(Human Information Technology)
We lead our every day lives supported by a large number of computers without even being conscious of this. Even more computers will be integrated and merged into the future social system and we will take no notice to their existence. Here, we define HIT as an information technology to enable us to enjoy better amenities of life. |
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| Panel Discussion |
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Dr. Satoshi Kabasawa, Moderator (Managing Director, Panasonic Digital Concepts Center)
IT is and will be a key technology of many industries. Considering the fact that mobile devices now material to our everyday life are becoming more dominant in the market, HIT is a significant technology in this field. In the midst of global competition, technical collaboration between US and Japan will be more important. AIST should play an intermediary role in this area .
Prof. William F .Miller (Emeritus Professor , Stanford University)
Prof. Miller emphasized that many excellent researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and technical experts in Silicon Valley have been making contributions to the regional economy by their dense and flexible network of tight relationships and producing unique products. He suggested that IT including mobile networks, tools for productivity improvement, and applications for public use would make more progress. In his opinion, IT will be combined with biotechnology, and product merchandizing will make rapid progress in the field of nanotechnology. However, he also added that face-to-face communication is very important no matter how widespread the Internet becomes.
Prof. Edward A .Feigenbaum (Professor, Stanford University)
Prof. Feigenbaum expected AIST to play a significant role to provide an insider's views to US researchers for the purpose of forming a human network. In addition, he indicated that it is a strong Japanese tradition to have a tendency to distinguish "we" and "they", which should be taken into consideration for the successful US-Japan joint research projects. He also raised the most potential research fields for co-operative projects of both countries, including (1)Semantic Web, (2)Information Fusion for Anti- Terrorism, (3)Bio-Informatics and Medical Informatics, and (4)Digital Libraries.
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| Dr. Satoshi Kabasawa |
Prof. Edward A .Feigenbaum |
Prof. William F .Miller |
Dr. James Baker (President & CEO, FX Palo Alto Laboratory)
Dr. Baker emphasized that Silicon Valley was a very powerful hub of technological development where constant efforts to search for new business chances were being made. What are within the scope of their future R&D projects include Next Generation Internet, Biotechnology, Natural Language, Multimedia, Quantum Computing and more. He suggested that the demands on computing technology would shift from "speed, quality and economical efficiency" to "simplicity, usability and reliability" .
Dr. Leonard Polizzotto (Vice President ,SRI International)
Dr. Polizzotto clarified that it was essential to upgrade the value of the customer's research achievements, so it would lead to the (1) creation of intellectual properties and commercialization, (2) recruitment/development of talented people, (3) revitalization of in-house communication, (4) acquiring market and customer information, and (5) increase in remuneration.
Prof. Michikazu Aoi (Dean, Keio Business School)
Prof. Aoi appreciated the value of the symposium as the first attempt for AIST to assess its international stature and expressed his opinion that AIST should place more emphasis on international relationships for their management.
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| Dr. James Baker |
Dr. Leonard Polizzotto |
Prof. Michikazu Aoi |
Dr. Hideyuki Nakashima (Director, Cyber Assist Research Center, AIST)
Dr. Nakashima discussed the difference between the research collaborations implemented in the U. S. and those in Japan from his own experience and pointed out that collaboration toward a higher plane in the IT field would comprise of various phases of conflict, negotiation and coordination of the related parties.
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Prof. Fu-Kuo Chang (Director, Smart Structure Research Center; Professor, Stanford University)
Prof. Chang said that IT was the technology to screen the vast amount of information to find the necessary and useful data. He outlined the profile of Smart Structure Research Center and the current research activities on Smart Structure technology as an example of Japan-US R&D collaboration.
Prof. Richard B. Dasher (Director, US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University)
With an intimate knowledge about Japan and AIST, Prof. Dasher offered his advice on AIST's involvement in the joint R&D projects and the potential business partners. Furthermore, he referred to the possibility of an international research cooperation which would take advantage of the large-scale, highly advanced research infrastructure of AIST. He expressed his expectations toward “Technology Showcase” scheduled in the afternoon.
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Dr. Robert Goldscheider (Chairman, The International Licensing Network, Inc.,)
Dr. R. Goldscheider, who is a prominent leader of technology transfer in the U.S., expressed his opinion that Japan had a high industrial and technological potentiality in spite of the severe economic recessions for the past 10 years, citing the past achievements of Japanese automobile and watch industries that quickly emerged into the world market, high level of education, diligence of blue-collar workers and so on. He analyzed that Japanese industries are not characterized by their own innovative inventions but their excellent production techniques to manufacture a high quality products based on the inventions introduced from abroad and the ability to distribute such products to the world. He also said that he and Lawyer R. Laurie were greatly impressed that AIST was abundant with excellent researchers when they visited AIST Tsukuba Center for three days in April of this year.
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| Prof. Richard B. Dasher |
Dr. Robert Goldscheider |
Exhibition Booths |
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With Business, Live demos and poster sessions at each booth.
Presentations were made on 10 different themes of HIT related technology transfer. Live demos and poster sessions were offered at exhibition booths throughout the day and rooms for business negotiations were also arranged for participants.
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Dr. Kuniyasu Suzaki (Senior Research Scientist, Information Technology Research Institute)
This is technology available in a Linux environment combining a virtual machine and hibernation, which saves the execution status of an operating system (OS) (OS snapshot). The OS current snapshot can be transferred to any computer or stored onto removal media such as CD-ROM for distribution. The procedures of the actual implementation of the system attracted a great amount of attention from the audience. There were many inquiries on the details of this technology at the booths.
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Dr. Koiti Hasida (Deputy Director, Cyber Assist Research Center)
This is an interactive information retrieval methodology which attains higher efficiency of search queries by giving hints to the user based on semantic structures. Active discussions on the related technologies were made at the booth including the relation with Semantic Web Project in the U.S.
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Dr. Ryuichi Oka (Visiting Research Scientist, Cyber Assist Research Center; Professor of Aizu University)
The presentation was on the system which allows the computer to recognize more than 30 different patterns of human gesture at real-time as “instructions”, aiming at user-friendly interactive system with computer for easier computer operation. |
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Dr. Shigeru Muraki (Head, Collaborative Research Team of Volume Graphics, Neuroscience Research Institute)
Cluster computing system technology enables the visualization of a large scale numeric simulation and real time image processing. Coloring method for MRI images is the technology to correlate MRI images to color making use of independent component analysis. |
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Dr. Kohtaro Ohba (Planning Officer, Planning Headquarters)
"All-in-focus camera" can capture images in focus at any distance without bringing the object into focus. The use of this camera facilitates the real time intuitive operation of a microscope. |
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Dr. Takanori Shibata (Senior Research Scientist, Intellectual Systems Institute)
A ubiquitous sensor can sense intensity of pressure, position of impact and so on through its flexible curved surface. For the application of this technology, a “healing” seal-type robot was developed for the purpose of realizing an emotional interaction between a robot and a human. |
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Dr. Fuminori Saito (Research Scientist, Intellectual Systems Institute)
The presentation was on a robot useful as a tool in everyday life and capable of handling various shaped objects (Manipulation robot technology). |
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Dr. Tetsuya Higuchi (Team Leader, Advanced Semiconductor Research Center)
This is a multi-functional myoelectric prosthetic hand system that allows user to manipulate multiple movements of fingers by the use of an advanced chip developed in combination with artificial intelligence and latest LSI technology for myoelectric pattern identification.
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Dr. Taro Itatani (Senior Research Scientist, Photonics Research Institute)
A block-copolymerized polyimide with micro-fabrication performance and low dielectric loss characteristics can be applied to an ultra-high-speed electric circuit with low noise emission.
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In order to fulfill our mission, it is essential to generate AIST's name recognition both at home and abroad by actively publicizing the research achievements as well as introducing excellent researchers to the international community. One of the objectives of the symposium was placed as a search for future directions of AIST in order to establish a new model as a public research institute which boasts an abundant source of brainpower and technologies competitive in the world market.
This symposium was held at Silicon Valley under the theme of HIT and attracted many leaders in the fields of IT and technology transfer in the U.S. The success was partly due to the advantage of the venue, as Silicon Valley is certainly the center of the IT business in the U.S. All the opinions expressed during the symposium were indispensable for the researchers and research managers of AIST to promote international research collaboration. In addition, we welcomed the participation of entrepreneurs, technology transfer consultants and venture capitalists at the symposium. As a result, AIST could offer an opportunity for researchers to discuss with people at the center of the venture businesses - Silicon Valley. The researchers could learn much from this experience and gain confidence in their academic efforts.
This symposium greatly contributed to the establishment of a new network of international research collaboration and system for international technology transfer and joint researches. The next step will be awaited in anticipation of AIST's further development.
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