Tokyo, September 17, 2003 ---
Honda Foundation (Hiromori Kawashima, President) has decided to confer the
Honda Prize for the year 2003 on Dr. Ken-ichi Mori (65), Ph.D., Adviser
to the Board of TOSHIBA TEC CORPORATION, Japan. Dr. Mori will be the 24th
recipient of the Honda Prize and the forth Japanese to receive the prize.
Dr. Mori studied thoroughly the Japanese grammar and used an engineering
approach to "the conversion of kana into kanji"in his efforts
to develop a Japanese typewriter, and succeeded in developing the first
Japanese word processor. (Translator's note: "Kana" is so-to-speak
the Japanese alphabet and "kanji" is a set of characters developed
and used in China and imported into the Japanese language.) This technology
not only became the prototype of later Japanese word processors, but also
produced decisive impacts as an environment for the use of the Japanese
language in the IT revolution. This success in the development of the Japanese
word processor was a distant event related with the direct motive for developing
the method of processing by computer of not only the Chinese language and
other languages of the cultural sphere based on the Chinese characters but
also characters other than the alphabet. This technology was applied to
many languages of the Asian countries and thus became the model of the development
of word processing systems of their countries. And thus this established
the methodology of processing languages by computer and became the premise
of the current "worldwide common means of communication" through
the Internet.
These activities of Dr. Mori meet the concept of "a true technology
developed in harmony with the entire environment surrounding the human activities
= eco-technology" advocated by Honda Foundation. Dr. Mori will be the
24th recipient of the Honda Prize, and will be awarded a supplementary prize
of Ten Million Japanese Yens (¥10,000,000). The awarding ceremony will
take place on November 17 (Monday) at Hotel Okura in Tokyo.
The term eco-technology results from the combination of ecology and technology.
It is a new technological concept that seeks harmony with the environment
surrounding all human activities. This differs from the conventional concept
of technology as a means to pursue efficiency and profit.
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September
17, 2003 