SPEAKERS

Sam Furukawa

Professor of Graduate School of Media Design Studies at Keio University

Born in Tokyo in 1954, Mr. Furukawa graduated from Azabu High School. He majored in Human Studies at Wako University, but left to join ASCII Corporation in 1979. He build their publishing and software development business. He served as a director from 1982 to his retirement in 1986.

In 1986, Mr. Furukawa established Microsoft KK, the precursor of Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd., and served as the first president. In 1991, he served as a CEO and a director of Far Eastern Development Department, and a Vice President for Microsoft USA, and in 2004 as the Chief Technical Officer for Microsoft KK. He has led the IT industry in Japan from an early stage.

He resigned from Microsoft KK in 2005. After his retirement, he started to contribute his energy to develop younger members. In 2007, he became one of the project manager for Exploratory IT Human Resources Project “The MITOH Program” by Information-technology Promotion Agency. He also started his present career at Graduate School of Media Design Studies, Keio University in 2008. He supervised and supported to develop “Chromatic Glass,” which is a color vision assistance tool for people with a color vision deficiency and used in more than 110 countries, and “READYFOR?,” which is the first cloud funding service in Japan. He focuses more energy on to discover, develop, and support younger members who will be successful innovators in the design, technology, management and policy fields.

In 2010, he became an outside director in Renesas Technology Corporation and a director in ewoman Inc., which is his current post.
Mr. Furukawa is an enthusiastic railfan from a young age and loves model railroading. As his spectacular scenic railway photo collections consisting of pictures taken from a chartered helicopter have been highly-praised, he is also well-known as a railway photographer. In 2014, he suffered a cerebral infarction. After a stroke, he paralyzed on one side of the body and had speech difficulty. However, he is recovering from them dramatically by earnest rehabilitation.