Japanese
Researcher's Dream

A research career motivated by creating a better life for everyone

Japanese

Published on January 25, 2023

A childhood spent immersed in science experiment

One of my fondest childhood memories was of scientific experiments.
In elementary school science class, I enjoyed seeing the color and temperature changes caused by chemical reactions when chemicals were mixed together, and I loved doing experiments with my own hands.
At fireworks festivals, I was fascinated by the bright lights and colors in the night sky caused by the combustion of various metals, and I realized that all the knowledge I was learning was related to my daily life.

As a high school student, I discovered that organic compounds extracted through experiments in class are contained in commercially available anti-inflammatory and antipyretic painkillers. I became keenly aware that learning about the composition and properties of compounds could be invaluable to people's lives.
As I came to understand the connection with people's lives through these studies, I began to think that it would be great if I could find a job in chemistry that would be useful to people.

A personal desire to conduct “useful” research and development

I am someone who loves to keep up to date with the latest information and to find out about new things.
There are many subjects besides chemistry that help support our lives and make the world more convenient. Over time, many have piqued my interest and curiosity, and I have a strong desire to learn more about many other fields.
As I grew older and absorbed information and recognized trends in the world, I became interested in the study of data utilization in informatics and decided to go on to study information engineering at university.

At that time, "Big Data" was a headline grabber, gaining increasing attention around the world, and many technologies for handling data were emerging.
We were also witnessing a series of developments in technologies such as navigation services that use location-based information to determine road congestion and recommend the best routes for users.
Other developments included services capable of using data about someone’s gender, age, values and lifestyle to recommend products and also a medical system that manages patient medical information and uses it for treatment.

These are all driven by active research that is encouraging new discoveries, and this was a real eye-opener for me.
During my university years, when I was exposed to new technologies on a daily basis, I became more and more motivated to develop new technologies and make them available to the world. This was why I joined Fujitsu, as a way of realizing the social implementation of technologies.

My career path in Fujitsu

For some time after joining the company, I was involved in projects related to distributed systems (*1) and edge computing (*2).
In fact, a lot of my work involved projects around newly launched research themes and assembling prototypes as a single system using open-source software (OSS).
I really enjoyed this, because it brought me into contact with a wide variety of OSS.
However, it also brought challenges with it.
The larger the amount of data and the scale of the system, the more functions and OSS are required, making it very difficult to get a full idea of the actual requirement from the outset.

At university, I often thought about what technologies would be useful for individual users. While conducting R&D at Fujitsu, I came to realize that we need for a broader vision, developing technologies not only to serve individuals, but also for public services and companies that support society.
Therefore, it was a fulfilling time for me, cherishing every opportunity I was given and absorbing every drop of knowledge I could.

More recently, I have started to work on the subject of “trust” in information and communications.
In this project, we are conducting R&D related to creating a truly "Trustable Internet" (*3), aiming to realize trust-based data exchange on the Internet.
Thanks to the experience I have gained in the edge computing project, I am now much more confident about engaging and contributing to the discussions on the best ways to identify functions and requirements that may be needed in the future.

A chance to study abroad - in California

“Please give me a chance to study abroad at an American university, so that I can create new ways of enabling trustable mechanisms in technology.”
In order to progress further with my current research, I felt it was time to broaden my R&D view by changing my research environment.
Something also happened to me a few years ago that was a major catalyst for change.

I met a researcher at an overseas conference, and was trying to tell them all about my own research and background.
It was, however, very frustrating as I just couldn’t conduct an easy, free-flowing conversation and convey my message concisely.
My command of English was holding me back, and I had to limit myself to getting just the main points across.
At this moment, I realized just how important it is to be able to converse in a short, easy-to-understand way.
This was one of the reasons why I decided to apply for the chance to study abroad, in order broaden my research focus as well as to improve my communications skills.

In 2022, my wish was granted and Fujitsu Research gave me the opportunity to study abroad for a year at the University of California, Davis, in the United States.
Currently, I am researching mechanisms to assist service users to make ethical decisions. When a company provides information or products to its users through its services, the intention is to help them understand more about the ethics – for example, why and to what degree these are ethically good or bad both for the individuals and society as a whole.

Let’s suppose a supermarket gives out discount coupons for wine to its customers.
If the customer is a pregnant woman, the coupon's product may have adverse health effects, so we need to make her aware of what the possible effects could be.
By providing information that assists users to make ethical decisions, companies can also demonstrate how they are trying to support users and society.
I have come to believe that it’s imperative to incorporate trust in information and ethical perspectives into the design of systems and future technologies.

Building trust in R&D

For me, the most important thing about the R&D I do is to develop technologies that are useful to its users.
When we embark on a R&D project, we don’t always know exactly what the requirements are going to be, so I always try to bear in mind what users want and what functions would be useful to them.

When I am thinking about the overall picture of future services and systems, I try to stand back and consider it from multiple different perspectives.
That way I can take a broad view to see what possible uses I can come up with.

Based on past research and data analysis, it is fun to think about whether we can design the system in a new way or show it in a different way to users.
In developing technologies that deal with trust and ethics, it is also extremely important to show why the technology itself is trustworthy.
I always have this in the back of my mind, and it makes me happy when I can research something with a useful outcome in some way.
This drives me to keep going with my quest to gather knowledge and practice useful R&D.

Miho Tanaka
Data & Security Research Laboratory
Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering
Joined Fujitsu in 2015
My Purpose
I believe in “enjoying everything.” A big part of this involves investigating existing technologies and developing our understanding of them, while tackling difficult and demanding tasks.
On my days off, I love driving and traveling on a regular basis, visiting famous beauty spots to enjoy the seasons and soak up the local atmosphere. I also like to visit gourmet restaurants and cafes.

Editor's note

Editor: Xiang Yi Peck, Communication Strategy Division

With the fast pace of technology change, Miho is always conscious of the need to move from acquiring knowledge to implementing something practical with her research.
In addition, her experience while studying abroad has deepened her interactions with overseas researchers and further increased her motivation for research.
She will undoubtedly continue to have an impact on research and development in the future, armed with her flexible approach and ability to imagine the future!

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