Intertitle: What was Dr. Yamaguchi’s great­est con­tri­bu­tion to the internet?

Hiroshi Esaki: The first one is he’s a found­ing mem­ber of the WIDE Project that is the ini­ti­at­ing R&D and busi­ness of the Internet in Japan, as well as col­lab­o­rat­ing with glob­al part­ners in order to make the Internet the real infra­struc­ture for everyone. 

The sec­ond achieve­ment of his is he is a leader and a found­ing mem­ber of the AI3 [pron. A triple‑I”], the Asian Internet Interconnection infra­struc­ture that is con­nect­ing more than thir­ty uni­ver­si­ties in Asia, of thir­ty coun­tries in the Asian region, that is lead­ing Internet edu­ca­tion as well as infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in the Asian area. 

The third of his achieve­ments is the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty busi­ness that is [?] he is the ini­tia­tor of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty in Japan as well as col­lab­o­rat­ing with glob­al part­ners for a long time. More than twen­ty years. And then he ini­ti­at­ed Japanese Cert, called JPCERT, that is a key group who are mak­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty in the Japanese com­mu­ni­ty. And also he worked with the Japanese gov­ern­ment. He ini­ti­at­ed NISC. That’s the nation­al insti­tute of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty busi­ness and pol­i­cy­mak­ing in Japan. 

The fourth achieve­ment of his is the expan­sion of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion, and the deploy­ment in Africa espe­cial­ly. He had a long-time trip work­ing with the Asian part­ners as well as African peo­ple. So he real­ly want­ed cyber­se­cu­ri­ty for every­one on the globe. 

Intertitle: What is Dr. Yamaguchi’s last­ing lega­cy in the internet?

Esaki: Well, he is real­ly the initiating…the group of the Internet in Japan. That’s very hard. Because a lot of peo­ple nev­er believed in the Internet at the time. Then he is a great humor per­son. Always he is smil­ing, and let peo­ple hap­py to smile. And then he’s a great leader with tech­ni­cal exper­tise. So he’s a real­ly tech­ni­cal and sci­en­tif­ic… Any sin­gle activ­i­ty, he is lead­ing the Internet in Japan, while col­lab­o­rat­ing with glob­al partners. 

Intertitle: What were Dr. Yamaguchi’s great­est chal­lenges and how did he over­come them?

Esaki: Well, [?] Professor Jun Murai (he’s the founder of the WIDE Project), always we are col­lab­o­rat­ing. Sometimes fight­ing with each oth­er and strug­gling to col­lab­o­rate. Though he is a most influ­en­tial per­son, and part­ner of his, in achiev­ing his great con­tri­bu­tions to the Internet, I believe. 

Intertitle: What is one of the most impor­tant lessons your father taught you?

Rui Takita: He actu­al­ly showed me that if he believes some­thing to do, just con­tin­u­ing, it’s actually…he’s going to achieve it some­day. So that’s actu­al­ly [what I] learned from him.

Further Reference

Internet Hall of Fame pro­file