Nobuo Mii

Leader of a team that built the first television system in Kyushu, Japan, Mii accomplished this feat in 1949 as manager of his high school Wireless Communications Club, mainly using electronic parts thrown away by the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in Fukuoka City. This project preceded even the Kyushu University's Engineering School and NHK's Fukuoka Broadcasting Station. His television was displayed at the Western Japan Invention Exhibition and won the Invention Award from the Ministry of Education.

Mii was born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, and graduated from Kyushu University in 1955. Upon graduation from university, he began working at NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories, Japan Broadcasting Company. Later, he was sent by NHK to Columbia University to study transistor technology, and upon return to Japan, made contributions to the application of transistors in broadcasting. From 1961, Mii worked on a team at NHK to automate their program preparation and broadcasting. This team eventually implemented the Total Online Program and Information Control System (TOPICS), using IBM System/360 and IBM 1800 computers. TOPICS was developed in close relationship with IBM's Federal Systems Division.

During NHK's TOPICS project, he impressed Bob Evans, who had led the IBM System/360 project to success and was the head of Federal Systems Division at that time, and was invited to work for IBM. He was hired by IBM Japan, Ltd., in 1969, but was immediately sent to IBM in the U.S. and worked on the Apollo Project. In 1971, as IBM created IBM Japan Development Laboratory, Mii became its Technical Operations Director, working in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and led the project to develop the IBM 3767 printer terminal, using the new Systems Network Architecture communications protocol.

In 1973, he became Director of the renamed IBM Fujisawa Development Laboratory and led various projects for the Japanese and worldwide markets, which included the IBM Japanese Language Processing System, the "Gemstone" low cost communications terminal series (IBM 3101 ASCII, 3104, 3178/3179 display terminals), and others. He was also involved in the development of IBM 5550 and IBM JX, which eventually led his laboratory to develop IBM ThinkPad. In 1990, Mii was named an IBM Corporate Vice President. He was later named a Director in Entry Systems Division and Power Personal Division.

In 1993, he became President of Power Personal Systems Company, whose objective was to develop, manufacture, and promote the PowerPC microprocessor. He retired from IBM in 1995. After retirement, Mii became the head of Sega's software company in the U.S. In 1997 he created Ignite Group in Silicon Valley, and set up Ignite Japan in 2000, becoming its Chairman.