May 2, 1997
New lecture series brings top Japanese high-tech business leaders to UW
Leading research managers from Japanese high-tech giants NTT Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. will kick off a new lecture series sponsored by the technical Japanese program and technical communication department at the University of Washington. Speakers will introduce the latest developments in multimedia and global communication technologies in Japan and discuss the international impact of these advances.
Shuichi Samejima, vice president and executive manager of Wireless Systems Laboratories for NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) will give the first lecture, “Trends in Wireless Multimedia in Japan,” on May 15. The second lecture, “Multimedia and Communication in Japan and Fujitsu’s Related Activities,” will be presented May 28 by Nobuaki Kawato, vice president and general manager of the Fujitsu Laboratories of America. Free and open to the public, both lectures will be held 4-6:30 p.m. in the conference room of the UW Faculty Club.
“We’re bringing in some of the top creative people from companies that are major players in expanding communication technologies,” explains Michio Tsutsui, director of the UW’s technical Japanese program. “NTT and Fujitsu are among the biggest companies in the world and have been leaders in developing communication technologies that are blowing people away.”
The lecture series, which will continue with two talks in the fall, is designed to emphasize the importance of cross-cultural understanding and to increase interaction between U.S. and Japanese high-tech business leaders and researchers.
“Walls have come down and many companies now have an international presence,” says Judy Ramey, acting chair of the technical communication department. “If engineers are parochial — if their perspective is limited by their own language and cultural boundaries — they won’t be able to succeed in this environment.”
The technical communication department, housed in the UW College of Engineering, conducts teaching and research in the application of communication media and theory to make technology more accessible to people. The department’s technical Japanese program, the only effort of its kind in the country, trains master’s students and professionals to read Japanese technical literature and collaborate with their Japanese counterparts.
###
For more information, contact Ramey at (206) 543-2588 or {jramey@u.washington.edu} and Tsutsui at (206) 543-2567 or {mtsutsui@tjp.washington.edu}.
<!—at end of each paragraph insert
—>
