The 16th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony (Remote)
On Wednesday the 13th January 2021, International Rescue System Institute, due to the CORVID-19 pandemic, held the 16th Kisoi Motohiro Award Ceremony remotely from Nagata, Kobe, an area damaged extensively by the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake 26 years before.
This year, the Kisoi Motohiro Award for Academic Achievement was awarded to Research Fellow Yoshiaki Bando of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence Research Center. The Kisoi Motohiro Award for Technical Achievement was awarded to Associate Professor Kotaro Hoshiba of Kanagawa University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical, Electronics and Information Engineering.
These awards recognise the outstanding achievements of Research Fellow Bando’s “Development of Extreme Robot Hearing Based on Acoustic Self-Positioning Estimation and Speech Enhancement for Rescue Robots.”, and Associate Professor Hoshiba’s “Research on the Use of Sound Using Drone Hearing in the Search for Victims.”
(Upper Photo: Bando’s Award）(Middle Photo: Hoshiba’s Award)
(Lower Photo: From the top left, IRS Vice Pres. Matsuno, Pres. Tadokoro,
Emeritus Prof. Kitamura, Academic Achievement Winner Mr. Bando,
Technical Achievement Winner Mr. Hoshiba）
The recipients of the Kisoi Motohiro Awards for Academic Achievement and Technical Achievement each receive 100,000 yen prize money, a certificate and a commemorative trophy presented by Executive Committee Chairman Fumiyoshi Matsuno.
The recipients of the awards for encouragement, which focus on the younger generation, are as follows. “Daikodai Enjunior” of Osaka Institute Of Technology Mono Lab Project received the Rescue Robot Contest Award for Encouragement of Ideas, “MCT” of Matsue College Department of Mechanical Engineering received the Rescue Robot Contest Award for Encouragement of the Spirit, and Ryota Watanabe of the University of Electro-Communications received the Award for the Encouragement of the Study of Rescue Robotics.
The recipients of the IEEE RSJ IROS 2020 Best Paper Award on Safety Security and Rescue Robotics in memory of Motohiro Kisoi received their award in October 2020 in Las Vegas, and so did not attend the remote ceremony in Japan.
After the remote Award Ceremony, each recipient’s presentation on their topic of research is available to view on the IRS homepage.（URL）
(From the top left: IRS Vice Pres. Matsuno, Pres. Tadokoro, Emeritus Prof. Kitamura, Academic Achievement Winner Mr. Bando, Technical Achievement Winner Mr. Hoshiba,
Spirit Award Winner MCT, Spirit Award Winner MCT, SICE-SI Chief Examiner Prof. Sato, Rescue Robot Contest Executive Committee Prof. Doi,
Idea Award Winner Daikodai Enjunior, Study of Rescue Robotics Winner Mr. Watanabe,
Idea Award Winner Daikodai Enjunior, Rescue Robot Contest Executive Committee
Prof. Yokokohji)
The remote ceremony closed with a warm applause for the highly acclaimed achievements in their respective fields of Mr. Bando and Mr. Hoshiba, and for the winners of the Awards of Encouragement, of whom we expect will make great contributions to the future of rescue robotics.