[No. 82] Shingo Yoshizumi

Hello, my name is Yoshizumi. I work at Sony, where I commercialize unique products through unique processes, and perhaps because of this, I have been given the opportunity to write this article.

I hope that through sharing these valuable experiences, I can convey something meaningful to all of you students.

Looking back on my nine years at Keio University, from entering Keio Senior High School (Jukuko) to completing my master's degree, I realize it was a time when I discovered hints about how to live a life true to myself. There used to be a term in Japan, "sanko" (the "three highs": tall, highly educated, and high income), but it was around this time that I decided to cherish my own version of the "three KOs"—curiosity (kokishin), proactiveness (kodoryoku), and ambition (kojoshin)—and to give shape to my dreams.

After entering Keio Senior High School from a public junior high school, I joined the Lacrosse Club for a few reasons:

・I liked ball sports.

・It wasn't too late to start in high school.

・It simply seemed interesting.

Because it was a minor sport, I had an advantage starting in high school. In my first year of university, I was selected for the U-19 Japan national team and competed in the World Cup.

My days were consumed by club activities. I learned that to deliver my best performance in practice, I had to be constantly mindful of everything outside of practice time as well—from managing my physical condition and improving performance to my daily diet, posture, and even the way I walked. I learned what it truly means to "do your best."

Wanting to try various things while I was a student, I quit the club at the end of my first year of university.

First, I focused on my studies. I figured since I was at a university, I should study hard, listen attentively in class, understand the material, and broaden my knowledge. Students from Keio Senior High School are already at a bit of a disadvantage (laughs), but I was fascinated by eye-opening concepts like the Fourier series, which states that any signal on a time axis is a sum of waves of various frequencies, and quantum mechanics, which posits with Zen-like logic that matter is both a particle and a wave. As the mysteries of the world were unraveled one by one in my mind, I truly felt that science and technology was fun.

Once I started enjoying it, I was on a roll. I achieved the best possible grades, and at my graduation ceremony, I received the Fujiwara Award for my achievements in both academics and sports.

In my fourth year of university, I joined the Kuroda Lab, which was conducting cutting-edge research in system LSI.

My reasons were:

・Its world-leading research

・Its academic focus aligned with market needs

・The charismatic professor

・The lab's motto: "Giving shape to dreams and sharing them with the world"

In the field of semiconductors, often called the "rice of industry," the lab had the second-highest number of papers accepted at the prestigious ISSCC conference—the Olympics of the field—over the past five years, second only to MIT. I experienced firsthand what it was like to turn ideas into reality and share them with the world, just as the motto said.

The knowledge and research methods I learned there proved to be extremely useful in my later career.

After quitting the club, I wandered to places around the world that interested me. I helped out a friend's travel startup, leading 75 students from Shinjuku to Mongolia by bus, boat, and train without using a plane. I stayed on an uninhabited island in the Federated States of Micronesia to experience "nothingness," volunteered to build a primary school in Cambodia, and saw the aurora borealis, a total solar eclipse, Tibet, the Guiana Highlands, the Uyuni Salt Flats, Cuba, and Bhutan. I followed my heart and visited over 40 countries in total.

For me, travel is an "encounter with the unknown," and just imagining it makes my heart race. It not only sharpens my sensibilities but has also taught me many of the skills necessary for business, such as adaptability, troubleshooting, communication, and decision-making. The more remote the places I visited, the more I wanted to properly convey to others how magnificent the scenery was, which led me to start studying photography seriously.

Because my travels sparked a love for photography, I was assigned to Sony's camera division. During my new employee training, I was told I could create any camera I wanted. I was thrilled.

One day, while walking in a park, I saw a parent and child taking pictures. The father was desperately trying to get a shot, telling his child, "Look this way." After he finished, he started playing with his child, whose face lit up with life, creating a scene overflowing with happiness. I thought to myself, "Ah, I wish I could capture this moment."

It's obvious, but if you're holding the camera, you can't play with your child, and if you're playing with your child, you can't take pictures. I wanted to capture memories, not just records. That's why I wanted to turn the camera into a cameraman.

So, I created a camera plus an electronic pan-tilt head that used the camera's image processing results to automatically compose shots and take pictures. The training project itself ended with a "well done," and I moved on to my actual job of developing LSI for cameras. But I still desperately wanted the camera I had built during training. It had nothing to do with my main job, so there was no direct benefit for me in pursuing it. But I simply wanted it. So, I continued to improve it under my desk and started giving unauthorized presentations within the company.

Gradually, more and more people started to help, the prototypes evolved, and after about three years, I finally got approval from top management. It became an official project, and together with another engineer, we pushed it forward forcefully, ultimately leading to the release of a unique product called "Party-shot."

It was featured by media outlets all over the world.

But what made me happiest of all was when friends who bought it sent me photos and said, "It captures the atmosphere of the moment so well. I'm so glad. Thank you for making it."

I felt that "giving shape to dreams and sharing them with the world" is the greatest happiness.

*Party-shot - The Story Behind the Development

As I continued to travel, a desire grew in me to do something for developing countries. Even now, separate from my job, I get together with friends, use our days off to survey villages without electricity, build prototypes of unique small generators, and have locals try them out. We enjoy the process of monozukuri (making things).

Perhaps it was at university that I learned my personal style of "giving shape to dreams." It's a cycle of getting interested in something, giving it a try, considering the gap between the ideal and reality, and making adjustments. That was my style, my "three KOs": curiosity, proactiveness, and ambition.

I encourage all of you to find your own personal style of "giving shape to dreams" during your time at university.