= A Serial Introduction Part 3 =Winners of ITU-AJ Encouragement Awards 2023
In May every year, The ITU Association of Japan (ITU-AJ) proudly presents ITU-AJ Encouragement Awards to people who have madeoutstanding contributions in the field of international standardization and have helped in the ongoing development of ICT.
These Awards are also an embodiment of our sincere desire to encourage further contributions from these individuals in the future.
If you happen to run into these winners at another meeting in the future, please say hello to them.
But first, as part of the introductory series of Award Winners, allow us to introduce some of those remarkable winners.

Masamune Nakakita

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation
https://www.ntt-east.co.jp/en/
Fields of activity: New Business Development in South-East Asia

Providing value-added services and implementing smart city in collaboration
with partners in Vietnam
I am very thankful to have received this prestigious
Encouragement Award from the ITU Association of Japan. I
would like to express sincere thanks to all at ITU-AJ and themany others who have offered their guidance and cooperation inthese activities.
During the four years from 2017 to 2021, I worked to provide
value-added services at OCG Technology JSC in Hanoi, Vietnam,
which is a joint venture between the NTT East Group andthe VNPT Group, a national telecommunications provider inVietnam. After returning to Japan, I worked on new businessdevelopment in South-East Asia, and mainly on smart-city
development projects in the Bình Dương province of SouthernVietnam.
To expand the service platform business that VNPT isproviding to the Vietnamese market, I particularly coordinatedamong various Japan and Vietnam partners in areas where JapanYuki Matsumura

has experience, such as cloud gaming and mind-training content,
from localization to preparation for implementation.
I later lead a smart-education solution project for elementary
schools in Vietnam, involving tablets, electronic blackboards anda cloud-based classroom support system, from trial to launching acommercial service.
In the most recent two years, I have been studying ways toimplement a smart city plan quickly in Southern Vietnam. For
example, we are planning a population flow control system thatuses camera video and AI analysis to shed light on the behaviorof residents, linked to transit and other services. Implementing
this will require high-speed connectivity such as Local 5G,
conforming to O-RAN, and also applications provided on thatplatform. I look forward to continuing this work and collaborating
more closely with everyone at the ITU active in these variousfields.

NTT DOCOMO, Inc
https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/
Fields of activity: 3GPP RAN1

Contributions to 3GPP RAN1 standardization
I am very honored to have received this prestigious
encouragement award from the ITU Association of Japan. I would
like to express my sincere gratitude to all at ITU-AJ and everyone
else involved. Since I joined NTT DOCOMO in 2014, I havebeen working on 3GPP standardization. For the first three years,
I worked on simulation of standard techniques. Since 2017, I haveattended 3GPP RAN1 meetings.
One interesting practice in 3GPP RAN1 is to continue
discussion until none of the companies raises any concerns
regarding the proposal. Any delegate in any company attending
the RAN1 meeting has a right to speak their views or raise
concerns regarding the proposals, which I think is a fair practicethat can help avoid overlooking potential issues. On the otherhand, sometimes it takes a long time to reconcile companies’ views

on an argument. In the last stage of Rel. 15 (i.e., the first release of
the 5G standard specification) in 2017, the discussion sometimes
started in the early morning and ended at midnight. In addition
to the official meeting, there were several offline discussions to
exchange companies’ views in detail. It was very hard work, butI felt a sense of accomplishment when I first read the finalized
standard specification for Rel. 15.
Since 2022, I have taken the role of moderator for the topicof Multi-Input-Multi Output (MIMO) in RAN1 for Rel. 18.
Although it is not easy to coordinate different views from different
companies, I feel it is very interesting when we converge after
extensive discussion and reach agreements. I will take this award
as encouragement and continue my effort to contribute to 3GPP
standardization activities.

New Breeze Spring 202417