Koichi Tagawa Receives NFC Forum Lifetime Achievement Award

Former NFC Forum Chair and SONY Executive Honored for Outstanding Leadership and Commitment to NFC Technology

WAKEFIELD, Mass. – December 13, 2022 – Near Field Communications (NFC) is one of the most prevalent technologies with over 20% of the world’s population using it weekly or daily. This steady spread of NFC technology across the globe was led for many years by long-time former NFC Forum Chair of the Board and SONY Senior Executive Koichi Tagawa. For his role in developing NFC standards and passionate promotion of the technology, Tagawa-san was honored by the NFC Forum with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The NFC Forum is the global standards-body for NFC technology. 

Today, billions of people use NFC to buy groceries, unlock their cars and hotel rooms, access public transportation, connect to smart devices, retrieve healthcare information and store identity credentials. NFC is standard on smartphones or smartwatches and can be embedded into almost anything and accessed with a tap of a smartphone or other NFC-enabled device. 

“I was never the visionary in the NFC Forum. Others had the vision to see how important NFC would become around the world,” said Tagawa-san. “I tried to be a Chair who would drive people to participate and work together. We built a strong industry association and created over 28 specifications and standards that are the foundation of the technology. We successfully harmonized the specifications to create an interoperable NFC ecosystem to operationalize the technology for consumer and business use.” 

Tagawa-san helped found the NFC Forum in 2004 and has served as either vice chair or chair since then. He stepped down from the chair position earlier this year leaving the NFC Forum with 250 member companies and in a strong position to begin the next phase in the association’s existence. 

“Over the lifetime of the NFC Forum, thousands of engineers and business leaders have contributed to enabling the contactless lifestyle we all enjoy today,” said Mike McCamon, executive director, NFC Forum. “We were honored to recognize Tagawa-san for his tremendous contributions to our mission.”

“I believe the most profound moment in the history of NFC and the NFC Forum was the moment we discovered how to simplify complicated device commissioning and connectivity with just a tap of a smartphone,” said Tagawa-san. “It was a true breakthrough that solved a real problem and launched an entirely new market segment.”

About the NFC Forum

The NFC Forum was launched as a non-profit industry association in 2004 by leading mobile communications, semiconductor, and consumer electronics companies. The Forum's mission is to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum's global member companies are currently developing specifications for a modular NFC device architecture, and protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery and device capability.

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For further information:

Paula Lowe, NFC Forum Public Relations

plowe@virtual.com

1 508-930-5434

Bob Olson, NFC Forum Public Relations

+1 978-872-7120

rolson@virtual.com