Tak Kamae  
  TAK KAMAE [M] (kamae@abmes.twmu.ac.jp) is director of research and development, Laboratories of Image Science and Technology (LIST), Tokyo, Japan, responsible for such projects as networked appliance architecture and IT-supported healthcare management. His past R&D work includes a facsimile communication system, digital videotex, and sketchphone. He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Japanese Government in 2000 for his achievements of facsimile communication system. He organized the first International Workshop on Networked Appliances (IWNA) in November 1998 in Kyoto and served as its general chair. He was chair of the Multimedia Communications Technical Committee, IEEE ComSoc (1999-2001), and is chair of the IFIP Entertainment Computing Task Force. He received his B.S. and M.S. in electronics from Kyoto University and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He worked for NTT for 26 years, and was vice president and executive manager of its Human Interface Laboratories from 1990 to 1993. After NTT he joined Hewlett-Packard and was director of its Japan Laboratories from 1993 to 1999. He is member of the advisory board of the Faculty of Advanced Techno-Surgery -Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering & Science at Tokyo Women's Medical University.
 

Takahiko Kamae (PhD EE'66)
I retired from NTT, a Japanese telecommunication carrier and started a new career with Hewlett-Packard in 1993. After I took a PhD from U of I in 1966, my career began as a research engineer with NTT in 1967. The biggest project I was involved in was the development of a facsimile communication network, which is now nicknamed F-net. From 1990 to 1993

I led its Human Interface Laboratories as the executive manager. R&D work at NTT's HI Labs includes video compression/ decompression, video and image processing, speech recognition/ synthesis, multimedia human interfaces, and human factors. Based on the discussions held at the labs, I organized the International Workshop on Networked Reality in May, 1994, in Tokyo. The workshop was very successful because we had good participants from many countries and very stimulating discussions. Multimedia, virtual reality and the information superhighway are really attracting attention in many countries. In April, 1994, I joined Hewlett-Packard and began a computer science research laboratory for HP in Tokyo. I believe many people in Western countries wonder whether such a job transfer may happen in Japan, where people tend to work for their whole lives with one company. Frankly, many phone calls, faxes and letters came. Most of them asked why, and the rest congratulated me and my courage indeed! There was one call to ask how.

Our organization is called Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Japan (HPLJ) and is located in Kawasaki City, a southwest neighbor of Tokyo. My experiences at Champaign-Urbana helped me a lot to adapt myself to a U.S.-based company culture. I met people from different countries as well as many Americans on the campus. Such globalism in U.S. universities made my student life at Urbana enjoyable and also stimulating. HP is also cherishing such globalism. It is one of the reasons I like HP.