Keizo Wada and Tadashi Shimizu, founders of Digital Electronics Corporation,
awarded "Légion d'honneur Chevalier" medal by The French Republic
Brief
Pro-face, the global leader of Human Machine Interface (HMI) and factory data communication solutions, announced that Keizo Wada and Tadashi Shimizu, founders of Digital Electronics Corporation, awarded "Légion d'honneur Chevalier" medal by The French Republic.
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Reason and background of the award
Digital Electronics Corporation was founded by Keizo Wada, Tadashi Shimizu, among others, in 1972, developing and selling the world’s first industrial display units to incorporate touch panel technology in 1988. Since then, owing to a capital and business alliance formed with the major French company Schneider Electric in 2002, Digital's display units have been used for nearly every industrial application imaginable, making Digital a major leader in the global market.
This alliance also enabled Schneider Electric to attain global leadership in the area of touch-panel display units, one of the most innovative markets in the electronics, software and communication industries. Moreover, the company was able to begin business interactions with Japanese industrial machinery manufacturers – a sector which supplies over 65% of exports to global markets. Now, Schneider Group Japan, which includes Digital, has grown to achieve the fifth largest stake within Schneider’s global sales.
Schneider Electric participates in the "Global Connect Program (GCP)", currently led by the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, as a global company receiving suggestions from “Only One” companies in the Kansai area. The success of such a large-scale business pairing performed even before the inauguration of the GCP can be seen as a great accomplishment for the Japanese Monozukuri (manufacturing) Industry, perhaps especially so for that in the Kansai region.
To honor such an achievement in the development of economic and industrial ties between France and Japan, it was recently decided to award this bestowment, the highest of France’s national decorations.
* The medal of Légion d'honneur is the highest decoration in the French Republic, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. It is awarded to people or groups that have made notable contributions to the country in fields such as military, culture, science, industry and commerce. The decoration has three ranks of Chevalier, Officier and Commandeur, and two dignities of Grand Officier and Grand Croix. To date, there are about 1,500 foreign recipients, with Japanese recipients such as Yoshiro Mori, Mariko Hayashi, Atsushi Horiba, Shoichiro Toyoda and Hideyo Noguchi comprising about 10%, or roughly 150, of these individuals.