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Dr. Sakae Okubo is globally recognized as a pioneer in the field of video communications. Dr. Okubo launched his career in 1964 at the Electrical Communication Laboratories of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), where he worked on the development of video telephone systems and terminal equipment, and did research on videoconferencing systems, broadband communication networks, and video coding. Thirty years later, Dr. Okubo left NTT for ASCII Corporation, where he spent nearly five years working in the management of R&D and standardization works at Graphics Communication Laboratories. In 1998, Dr. Okubo became a Fellow Researcher at the Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAO), and began his studies in audiovisual/multimedia coding and systems at Waseda Research Center. He has held his current position at Waseda University since 1999. Dr. Okubo has spent much of the last 20 years focused on the international standardization of video coding and audiovisual communication systems. This has included leading the Specialists Group on Coding for Visual Telephony of CCITT SGXV (currently ITU-T SG16) from 1984 to 1990, which developed Recommendation H.261; the Experts Group for Video Coding and Systems in ATM and Other Network Environments from 1990-1996; and the Requirements Sub-group of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 (MPEG) from 1991 to 1995, which collaboratively developed the common text ITU-T Rec. H.262|ISO/IEC 13818-2 (known as MPEG-2 video). He has been CCITT/ITU-T Rapporteur for the relevant Question since 1985, and responsible for audiovisual communication system Recommendations such as H.320 (N-ISDN), H.310/321 (B-ISDN), and H.322/323 (LANs). He currently acts as Chairman of Working Party 2 (Multimedia platform and interworking) of ITU-T SG16. For his contributions to this field, Dr. Okubo was awarded "Most Significant Advance in the Field of Teleconferencing 1989 Overall" from TeleConference Magazine in the US, and "Leadership Award" from IMTC (International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium). Dr. Okubo is also a member of numerous industry associations. He joined DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual Council) in September 1996 as a Management Committee member, and subsequently acted as one of the Technical Committee chairmen until the group disbanded in September 1999. He served as the Vice Chairman of the TV-Anytime Forum from its inception in September 1999 until August 2001. He is currently a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a Member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, the Institute of Television Engineers of Japan, and the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan. | 