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30 January 1932 – 24 August 2022 was a Japanese philanthropist, entrepreneur, Zen Buddhist priest, and the founder of Kyocera and KDDI. He was the chairman of Japan Airlines.
Inamori was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 2000 for innovation in ceramic materials and solar cell development/manufacturing, entrepreneurship of advanced technologies, and for being a role model for relating science to society.
In 2011, he received the Othmer Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to progress in science and chemistry.
In 1959, Inamori and several other colleagues established Kyoto Ceramic, later known as Kyocera. The company manufactured high-frequency insulator components for television picture tubes for Matsushita Electronics Industries (later Panasonic) in Japan, and silicon transistor headers for Fairchild Semiconductor and ceramic substrates for IBM in the United States. At Kyocera, Inamori implemented his Amoeba Management system.
After deregulation of Japan’s telecommunications industry in 1984, Inamori founded Daini Denden (DDI) Corporation. DDI later entered the cell phone business, merging with KDD (Kokusai Denshin Denwa) and IDO (Nippon Idou Tsushin Corporation) in 2000 to form KDDI, which has grown to become Japan's second-largest telecommunication services provider.
In September 1997, Inamori took the name Daiwa and became a lay priest at Enpukuji Temple in Kyoto. However, at the age of 77, the Japanese government asked him to come out of retirement to help save the national airline, Japan Airlines (JAL). Inamori became the president of Japan Airlines when it entered bankruptcy protection on 19 January 2010, and led the air carrier through its restructuring, eventually allowing the company to re-list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in November 2012. Inamori has been an International Advisor of Goldman Sachs.
On 24 August 2022, Inamori died at the age of 90.
In 2005, the Alfred University School of Engineering (Alfred, NY) was renamed in honor of Dr. Inamori. He endowed the Inamori Scholarship fund in 1996, doubling the fund in 2004. In Dr. Inamori's honor, the Kyocera Corporation has given a $10 million endowment to enable expansion of the Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering's research faculty.
In 2005, Inamori helped to establish the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio), with a gift of $10 million. The center awards the Inamori Ethics Prize to those who serve as examples of ethical leadership and make significant contributions to the betterment of global society.
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