2009 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing

Dr. MIYAHARA Hideo, born in Osaka, Japan in 1943, has been the president of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan since September 2007. He was the president of Osaka University from August 2003 to August 2007. He also was a Visiting Scientist at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1983 to 1984.

Dr. Miyahara is a Life Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers of Japan. His research interests include performance evaluation of computer communication networks and distributed multimedia systems.

Dr. Miyahara has received numerous awards, including the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award in 2008, and the 6th Ericsson Telecommunications Award in 2002. He also received recognition from the Japanese Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2003.

Challenges for a New Generation Network

First, I would like to look back over the past five decades, during which we have witnessed dramatic technological changes in information and communication technologies (ICT). I want then to share with you my thoughts on what role ICT should be playing in our society over the next 50 years. Then, from the viewpoint of ICT, I will discuss several challenges we will face in developing a new generation network (NWGN), which is envisioned as a post IP network. In pursuing the NWGN program, I have come to believe that we need collaborative research with specialists from various fields. I will introduce, as an example, our interdisciplinary research project currently being pursued by NICT and Osaka University.