TEAM

Kazuki Iimura was born in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Science and Technology, Nihon University. Later he establishes GinzaFarm Co., Ltd. an AI and robot-based agritech venture business that promotes the local 5G robots and JAXA lunar farm projects. In 2013, he established Farmroid Co., Ltd. as an R&D company for the applied research on UV technology in the agricultural field. Farmroid's main purpose was the development and sales of UVBusters, which uses UV light to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) that outbroke in 2019. Then, UVBuster was in the limelight as the first domestically produced ultraviolet robot. Currently, he is a visiting researcher at Nihon University School of Medicine and is conducting joint research on Far-UVC LED with RIKEN. He promotes research and development with RIKEN and Nihon University of Medicine to create a virus inactivation UV system that has a negligible effect on the human body and making Farmroid the world's best Far-UVC LED research team.

M. Ajmal Khan was born in Wana (South Waziristan), Pakistan. He received his M.Sc and M.Phil degrees in Applied Physics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Later, he received his PhD degree in applied physics from Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba, in 2013. In 2012, during his PhD work, he has discovered the thin film of boron (B) doped p-type BaSi² layer "p+" along with his PhD supervisor Prof. Takashi Suemasu. After his discovery the efficiency of the solar cell was enhanced from 1.4% to 10%. Later he joined the team of FUTURE PV-Innovation, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Fukushima Renewable Energy AIST Institute (FREA), Koriyama in 2014 and worked on Si NWs, c-SiGe and a-Si/c-Si heterojunction solar cells. In 2017, he moved to Prof. Hideki Hirayama Lab at RAP Riken and later in 2020 moved to RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research as a research scientist. Since then, he has been doing research on the epitaxial growth, characterization, and device applications of group III-nitride semiconductor-based UV LEDs and UV Laser Diodes. He has developed an AlGaN UVB LED with a world record efficiency of 9.6% with a light power of 40 mW on the wafer. In 2021, he moved to Farmroid as a senior research scientist and to work on the R&D project of Far-UVC LED for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation. He bears various roles and responsibilities, such as being a visiting Scientist at RIKEN, a renowned member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP), and guest editor of the MDPI journal of Crystal.

Harshitha was born in Karnataka, India. She holds a bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, India. In 2019 after her graduation, she joined to an established venture company MOSAIQUE in India, to work on the research and development of air purifiers using UV technology and nanotechnology. Later, in 2021 she joined Farmroid Co., Ltd. as a research engineer to work in the R&D team of Far UVC LED for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation.

Tomomasa Sato was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the Department of Industrial Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo. Completed his doctoral program in 1976. Since then, he was engaged in research and development of robots for over 50 years. Since 1976, he has been involved in research on intelligent tele-operational robots at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL), the predecessor of today's AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology). After moving to University of Tokyo in 1991, he worked at Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology, the Graduate School of Engineering, the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, where he was involved in the research and development of intelligent robots, including environmental robots such as robotic rooms and robots that contribute to urban development. During that time, he was the chairman of the Robotics Society of Japan (2007-2009) and at the same time project leader of the Intelligent Module Project of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2007-2012). Currently, he is still the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Robot Summit organized by METI and NEDO, chairman of WG3 of Robot Revolution and Industrial IoT Initiative Council (RRI), which was established in 2015. He is also the chairman of the board of directors of RobiZy (Robot Business Support Organization), which was established in 2016 to revitalize the robotics industry and is focused on the social implementation of robots.

Masafumi Jo was born in Miyazaki, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from University of Tokyo in 2003. After he worked at Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, and National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), he joined RIKEN in 2013. He is currently a senior researcher of Quantum Optodevice Laboratory in RIKEN. He has been working on the crystal growth of semiconductors, and on the fabrication of nano-structured solid-state light sources. He is a member of Japan Society of Applied Physics. He is actively collaborating with Farmroid in the development of Far-UVC LED for virus inactivation.