Messages from Outside Directors

In fiscal 2020, under the emergency declaration due to COVID-19 infections, many companies faced head on the tough question of how to continue their in-person business through repeated trial and error. As in-person businesses struggled, KDDI utilized information and telecommunication infrastructure to support working from home and actively and boldly fulfilled its social mission. I was able to find out about the strength of the Company's ability to respond to the crisis from the Board of Directors report. To respond to crises, dayto-day preparation is critical. KDDI has continually invested management resources in upgrading and managing its telecommunications base, and the Company has received acclaim for its unique accomplishment.
The crisis calls for a social transformation through DX to realize an advanced information and telecommunications-based society. The role of a corporation is to achieve sustainable growth while fulfilling its social mission, regardless of the situation being faced. In a new normal era after defeating an external enemy, people are more sensitive toward environmental and social issues. On this front, I think that KDDI can compete through its mainstay initiative of the "integration of telecommunications and life design."
I have accumulated business experience in Japan and overseas and will, of course, look at management from an external perspective as an outside director. I will provide support to KDDI through the Board of Directors to ensure the Company leverages those accumulated technologies to remain active at the core of this era's social transformation.

Fiscal 2020 was a challenging year as future uncertainty increased during the pandemic. Amid this situation, KDDI's Board of Directors held robust exchanges of opinions regarding material management issues, actively promoted growth strategies, and fulfilled its function of monitoring management.
In the new normal era, based on the idea of enabling customers to more optimally use the lifeline of telecommunication services, KDDI will continue to produce excitement in all aspects of life through the "integration of telecommunications and life design." In short, the Company is expected to actively offer new enriching lifestyles and sustainably provide services that underpin and develop those lifestyles. In addition, as for the policy on SDGs, many relevant items have always been included in the KDDI Group Philosophy, and I think the Company is expected to further enhance these initiatives. I am also paying attention to regional revitalization and diversity & inclusion initiatives, and I expect the Company's pilot tests of smart cities and agricultural support using ICT to lead to the future development of regional communities. I also think the initiatives to promote the advancement of women and employ people with disabilities lead to the sustainable development of society. As a female director, I am hopeful that this will further support the advancement of women. When speaking at Board of Directors meetings, I will continue striving to leverage the sense of balance and legal mind I have cultivated as a lawyer while simultaneously speaking from the position of being an "au" user.

KDDI is boldly working in growth fields while keeping a firm foothold in telecommunications. Measures are being taken in various facets of society to overcome the pandemic, with digitalization and an online shift being, in some sense, forcibly promoted. You could say the decline in social activities amid the pandemic has been stopped by utilizing information and telecommunication technologies and services. However, this has highlighted the issue that current technologies and services alone are insufficient to smoothly conduct all communication between people, especially in remote areas.
In university, I was involved in education and research for information and telecommunications, especially the internet and cyber security. As a researcher, my starting point is research into artificial intelligence. I participated in Japan's fifth generation computer project and worked as a visiting researcher in the field of artificial intelligence at Stanford University. In current research on artificial intelligence, information and telecommunication are fully utilized.
That does not, however, mean that everything is progressing smoothly everywhere. Among the general public, the reality is that incidents still arise from software inadequacies and not everyone can sufficiently use computers. I think one of my roles is to raise awareness of this problem among the next generation.
The mission of information and telecommunications is to realize a comfortable and fun neural network for human society, and KDDI has been charged with the role of leading the way.

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