Inventor of blue LED wins Millennium Technology Prize

[james]

The winner of a $1.2-million US prize for his inventions in light and laser technology, including the blue LED that is revolutionizing lighting, said Friday he will give away some of his money to promote research at universities and organizations that help developing countries.



more.. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/09/08/tech-led.html

[Socratesabroad]

I knew Nakamura's name sounded familiar...

This is a great example of the Japanese maxim: "The nail that sticks out is hammered back in."

I've written a lot about Shuji Nakamura, the Japanese research scientist from Nichia Chemicals who developed the blue Light Emitting Diode (LED.) Nakamura was heralded as a hero by many everyday working Japanese because:

* he developed a technology that labs around the world had been unable to build
* he developed this technology in a small, back-water lab in Southern Japan (i.e. not a leading global research institution)
* he did so in an environment of little-to-no-support from his own company
*
* the technology that he built, enabled the creation of millions of new products that we use everyday from LED traffic lights, to DVD players to LCD televisions, and many other products

The start of the sad part of the story is that Nakamura was paid a $200 bonus for his ground-breaking, highly-profitable work. Nichia's blue LED patents made (and continues to make) the company hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

So Nakamura left Nichia, moved to the US and is now teaching at UC Santa Barbara. He sued Nichia and after many years of struggle, last year Nakamura won an award of $194 million. Nichia then appealed the case to the second-highest court in Japan, and the award was just recently reduced to a paltry $8 million.

Nakamura's bitterness is extremely palpable:

"Japan is treating people as though they're all robots," he said. "I'm so lucky I work in the United States. I can't imagine working in Japan again."

"The judicial system in Japan is rotten," Nakamura said. "I am outraged. That's all I have to say."

http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2005/01/15/08h35m50s