Mr Iwaki Masakazu, Senior Director of NHK Engineering System Inc NHK-Japan, has won the ABU Broadcast Engineering Excellence Award for his promotion of AI technologies for programme production and his outstanding contributions to the ABU Technical Committee and ABU activities.

The award was announced at the online Technical Committee Meeting on 24 November.

Expressing his gratitude, Mr Iwaki told the meeting he had spent most of his career as a research engineer at the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL).

He recalled that his first research and development project had been to develop an ice-zone microphone system to pick up the sound of ice skating. The system had been used at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998.

Mr Iwaki said he had recently managed the promotion of the effective use of AI technologies for programme production. The laboratories were focusing on the AI transcription system, AI announcer, AR/VR technologies for sports events and so on.

Mr Iwaki has held a number of important posts in the ABU Technical Committee for more than a decade. These included transmission topic chairman, vice chairman and chairman.