Mr. Watanabe has 23 years of experience in image processing and multimedia related LSI design. Before founding NuCORE, Mr. Watanabe played a leading management role at GenTech, a Japanese computer vision start-up as COO & VP. At GenTech, he was responsible for the development of Vector Quantization based compression applications and 3D recognition systems in alliance with an Israeli company as well as funding of $2 million from venture capital firms. Prior to GenTech, Mr. Watanabe held key development positions at Intel Japan and Hitachi Medical. During his 12 years at Intel Japan, he managed the Network Product Division, DVI Evangelize Team (new product concepts for computer vision), ASIC Design Center and Quality Control Department. He was a member of MITI’s industrial council for planning future imaging technology trends and was awarded the Intel Achievement Award for the development of a PC based ISDN video conference system. In the preceding 9 years at Hitachi Medical, Mr. Watanabe was the leader of standardization for high speed digital system design, and as lead hardware designer, developed image processors for CT-scans, cardiograph and heart-sound automatic analyzers, and distributed database systems for healthcare services.