DR. SHUJI HIRAKAWA received Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1978. As a Ph.D. student, he pioneered research on “coded modulation”. For celebrating his work with Professor Hideki Imai, IEEE Information Theory Society honoured him by Golden Jubilee Paper Award that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary from the origin of INFORMATION THEORY initiated by Dr. Claude Elwood Shannon in 1948.

Dr. Hirakawa joined Toshiba Corporation in 1978 and participated to the development of MUSE (analogue HDTV satellite broadcasting system) with NHK (Japan Broadcasting Organization) Labs and a new broadcasting satellite service (BSS) system for digital sound broadcasting for mobile and handheld receivers.

In ITU-R, he developed several Recommendations including Recommendation ITU-R BO.1130 System E for Japanese BSS (sound) in 1999. Dr. Hirakawa is a vice-chairman of ITU-R WP 6B (Broadcast service assembly and access) and was the Secretary of IEC TC 100 (Audio, Video and Multimedia Systems and Equipment) from 2004 to 2010.  Currently he is the IEC Standardization Management Board Member representing the IEC National Committee of Japan from 2011.

He is an IEEE Life Fellow, an SMPTE Life Member, an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting and Administrative Committee Member of IEEE Broadcast Technology Society since 2010.  He served the chairman of IEEE BTS Japan Chapter in Year 2008 and 09.