Ricoh Innovations CEO Dr. Nikhil Balram Receives 2016 Otto Schade Prize

CUPERTINO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 23, 2016) - Ricoh Innovations Corporation ("RIC"), a Silicon Valley-headquartered subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd. that creates global new businesses based on advanced information technology for Ricoh, today announced that its president and CEO Dr. Nikhil Balram received the prestigious Otto Schade Prize from the Society for Information Display. The award cites Dr. Balram's "outstanding contributions to image, video, and display processing technology, and for development of objective image-quality benchmarking methodology that helped bring world-class image quality to mainstream consumer displays." The prize will be presented to Dr. Balram at an awards banquet on May 23 at the beginning of SID 2016 International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition (Display Week 2016), held in San Francisco.

Headquartered in Campbell, California, the Society for Information Display (SID) is an international organization of professionals in the display industry, with an exclusive focus on the advancement of electronic display technology. The organization's members work in all the technical and business disciplines relating to display research, design, manufacturing, applications, marketing and sales. SID's largest conference is Display Week (its annual Symposium, Seminar and Exposition), attracting thousands of attendees from around the world.

"Dr. Balram's broad contributions in image and video processing for information display systems have advanced the state of the art across a wide range of display systems by enabling high image quality," stated Dr. Achin Bhowmik, vice president of SID Americas, and vice president and general manager of Perceptual Computing at Intel Corporation. "I am pleased that SID has decided to recognize his remarkable achievements with this award."

The Otto Schade Prize is awarded annually for "outstanding scientific or technical achievement in, or contribution to, the advancement of functional performance and/or image quality of information displays." The prize is named in honor of the pioneering RCA engineer Otto Schade, who invented the concept of the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and who used it to characterize the entire display system, including the human observer.

Chris Chinnock, president of display technology research firm Insight Media, stated, "With his significant body of work in display electronics, Dr. Balram has been a pioneer in bringing world-class image quality to mainstream consumer displays. In addition to the novel algorithms and architectures he created, his development of objective benchmarking methods for image quality helped consumer electronics manufacturers design better products, and helped industry reviewers and consumers better understand the improvements."

With over 20 years of experience, Dr. Balram is widely hailed throughout industry and academia as an expert and innovator in advanced information and display technologies, and has been an officer of five publicly listed companies. He has won numerous awards including the 2015 Industrial Distinguished Leader Award from APSIPA (Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association), a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for Executive of the Year in the Electronics category in The 9th Annual International Business Awards, a 2012 Fellow Award by the Society for Information Display (SID) and the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award by Carnegie Mellon University. He has significant experience in international business development, marketing, R&D and product development, with a track record of building and leading a number of advanced technology businesses from concept to commercial success.

"Having worked with Dr. Balram at multiple companies in his career, I've seen his incredible passion and constant drive towards excellence," said Robert Haefling, president and CEO of Icron Technologies Corp. "This award is very well deserved recognition of his exceptional track record in bringing significant scientific and commercial innovation to market in high volume products."

Dr. Balram is an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, visiting professor of vision science at the University of California, Berkeley, a guest professor of design and innovation at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Gandhinagar, India, and serves on the Engineering Advisory Board at the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University. He has over 100 US and international patents granted or pending, more than 50 technical publications including two invited book chapters, and has given over 25 keynote speeches at major conferences and events worldwide.

Professor Sudhir K. Jain, director of the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, said, "We have been privileged to have Dr. Balram associated with IIT Gandhinagar for the last five years as a guest professor, during which he has made a huge impact on the Institute. He is an exceptional individual and very deserving of this great honor."

Dr. Balram received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where he has also served on the Dean's Leadership Council, Silicon Valley Advisory Council, and Admissions Council, and currently serves on the ECE Alumni Council.

Details about SID can be found at www.sid.org.

About Ricoh Innovations Corporation
Headquartered in California's Silicon Valley with a subsidiary in Bangalore, India, Ricoh Innovations Corporation ("RIC") creates global new businesses based on advanced information technology for Ricoh Company, Ltd. Founded as Ricoh Innovations, Inc. in 1997 as a subsidiary of Ricoh and expanded to Ricoh Innovation Corporation in 2013, RIC is home to world-class technologists and engineers, accomplished ethnographers and designers, and an experienced business and marketing team.

Ricoh Innovations Corporation addresses the large opportunities and challenges presented by The Infinite Network - RIC's vision of the future in which all things and all people are connected all the time. Through the seamless integration of technology, user experience and business expertise, RIC generates Deep Innovation leading to the creation of new businesses that provide value to Ricoh's customers. Internal innovation is complemented with Open Innovation: working in partnership with a broad range of leading universities and forward-thinking companies around the world. To learn more about Ricoh Innovations Corporation, visit http://ric.ricoh.com.

About Ricoh

Ricoh is a global technology company that has been transforming the way people work for more than 80 years. Under its corporate tagline -- imagine. change. -- Ricoh continues to empower companies and individuals with services and technologies that inspire innovation, enhance sustainability and boost business growth. These include document management systems, IT services, production print solutions, digital cameras, and industrial systems. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in over 190 countries. In the financial year ending March 2015, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,231 billion yen (approx. 18.5 billion USD). For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com

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