Turning crisis into opportunity for transformation: Understand the world and discover unknown value

Abstract

NTT is promoting the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) to provide an information and communication technology infrastructure that brings about various benefits. The company is pursuing research and development of key technologies to implement IOWN in 2030. Now that the entire world has been hit by an unprecedented situation due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, expectations for NTT's efforts based on its philosophy of contributing to society are growing. We talked with Katsuhiko Kawazoe, NTT Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Development Planning Department, about the attitude of his department-which ought to be called the “brain of NTT”-to tackle this crisis and the sense of value of NTT researchers.