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Nagamori Foundation held the Third Nagamori Awards Ceremony at Kyoto Hotel Okura on Sunday, September 03, 2017 for the winners of the awards and the recipients of the research grant for 2017. The ceremony was attended by approximately 230 people including many academics, the winners of Nagamori Awards, research grant recipients, and those related to Nagamori Foundation.
Sixty-two candidates, nominated by either an academic institution or self-nominated, submitted their applications from all over the world for this year’s Nagamori Awards, and eight of them were selected as the winners by the Review Committee. Then, on the day of the ceremony, all the eight winners gave lectures, exhibited panels on their research and, Dr. Yoshitaka Iwaji, Chief Researcher of Motor Systems Research Department of Center for Technology Innovation – Controls of Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd. was selected as the winner of the Grand Nagamori Award by the Review Committee.
The ceremony began with Dr. Hori, the Review Committee’s Chairman, explaining how the winners were selected, followed by the announcement of the Third Nagamori Awards, for which each winner received a commendation certificate and a prize cup from Mr. Nagamori, President of Nagamori Foundation. Then, representing the award winners, Dr. Iwaji gave a speech to express the pleasure of receiving the award.
Dr. Iwaji, the winner of the Grand Nagamori Award was presented with an extra prize of 5 million yen, and the winners of Nagamori Awards, 1 million yen.
The next part of the ceremony was to present research grant for 2017 (“Research Grant 2017”) for the researches by 15 university associate professors and others (11 new and four ongoing recipients). Dr. Keisuke Kusaka, an industry-academia-government collaborative researcher of Nagaoka University of Technology, made a speech to appreciate the grant on behalf of all the grant recipients.
The above events were followed by two special lectures by Dr. Hiroshi Komiyama, Chairman of the Institute, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., on “Innovations for a Platinum Society,” and Dr. Hirofumi Akagi, Distinguished Research Professor and Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Institute of Technology, on “Trends in Power Electronics and Motor Drives” respectively. The entire ceremony, including the aforementioned awards and grant presentation ceremonies, followed by a celebratory party, ended in great success.
Dr. Yoshitaka Iwaji
(Chief Researcher, Motor Systems Research Department, Center for Technology Innovation - Controls, Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd.)
I am much honored to be the recipient of the highly prestigious Nagamori Award.
I have been engaged in the development of motor control technologies for various products for 25 years since joining the company.
From this long experience, I believe the most important thing for motor control technology is high applicability.
I think that the fundamental mission of a motor control engineer is to develop widely applicable control techniques suitable for various kinds of motors, such as highly efficient and/or high power density motors.
It is the greatest honor to receive this award for a technique based on my belief.
The award encourages me more and makes me realize that I have to contribute further to maintaining the global environment by developing technology.
As I receive this award, I wish to thank all engineers of the group businesses that supported the development of this control technique, the senior members and co-workers of my workplace, and my family.
