Robot Astronaut Kirobo Awarded Two GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ Titles

Dentsu Inc. (TOKYO: 4324) (ISIN: JP3551520004) (President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 74,609.81 million yen) announced today that Kirobo, the robot astronaut developed under the KIBO ROBOT PROJECT, a joint research project carried out in collaboration with the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, ROBO GARAGE Co., Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has been awarded two GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS titles.

Kirobo (Photo: Business Wire)

Kirobo arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on August 10, 2013 and spent a total of eighteen months there, holding the world’s first conversation experiment in outer space between a robot and a human, JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, and conducting research for a future in which humans and robots coexist.

On February 10, Kirobo came safely back to Earth aboard SpaceX’s CRS-5 Dragon cargo supply spacecraft which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off California, and then arrived back in Japan on March 12. Kirobo’s first words after returning home were: "From up above, the Earth glowed like a blue LED.”

At the debriefing session held today at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, the project members gave a summary report and showed a video of the highlights of Kirobo’s activities aboard the ISS. The session was chaired by Fuminori Kataoka, project general manager in the Product Planning Group of Toyota Motor Corporation, and the two speakers were Tomotaka Takahashi, the president of ROBO GARAGE Co., Ltd. who is also a visiting research fellow at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and Yorichika Nishijima, a copywriter in Dentsu Inc.’s Business Creation Center as well as head of the Dentsu Robot Center. Kirobo also appeared on stage to chat with the project team members.

Erika Ogawa, Vice President Japan, Guinness World Records Ltd, then presented Kirobo with two GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS certificates:

KIBO ROBOT PROJECT Official Site: http://kibo-robo.jp/

[About the Dentsu Group]

Dentsu is the world’s largest advertising agency brand. Led by Dentsu Inc. (Tokyo: 4324; ISIN: JP3551520004), a company with a history of 113 years of innovation, the Dentsu Group provides a comprehensive range of client-centric brand, integrated communications, media and digital services through its eight global network brands—Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Posterscope and Vizeum—as well as through its specialist/multi-market brands including Amnet, Amplifi, Data2Decisions, Mitchell Communications (PR), psLIVE and 360i.

The Dentsu Group has a strong presence in 124 countries across five continents, and employs around 40,000 dedicated professionals. Dentsu Aegis Network Ltd., its global business headquarters in London, oversees Dentsu’s agency operations outside of Japan. The Group is also active in the production and marketing of sports and entertainment content on a global scale.
www.dentsu.com

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