Hisao Taki
Born in Tokyo. An entrepreneur. A person of cultural merit. The inventor of Pair Go. Honorary president of the public interest incorporated foundation Japan Pair Go Association and World Pair Go Association. Received honorary Ph.Ds. from Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) and Ochanomizu Women’s College. After graduating from the Mechanical Engineering Department of TIT, Taki sought to become an entrepreneur creating new values by founding, just after the commercialization of the internet had begun in Japan, many new enterprises, such as a service website for searching for restaurant for wining and dining Gurunavi, and the online Go-playing service Pandanet.
Is very fond of Go and is amateur 8-dan in strength; he has received 8-dan diplomas from the Nihon Ki-in and the Kansai Ki-in. In 1990, he invented a new mind sport, Pair Go, in which pairs made up of a male player and a female player play each other; it is based on the one-on-one format of traditional go. He also formulated the basic rules for Pair Go. In 1994, in order to advance the international popularization of Pair Go, he founded the juridical body Japan Pair Igo Foundation (the present Japan Pair Go Association).
In 2008, in order to foster even further the international popularization of Pair Go, he founded the World Pair Go Association (as of December 2023, organizations representing Go in 75 countries and territories were affiliated members). In 2016, the outstanding contributions to popularizing Go of Taki Hisao and his wife Taki Hiroko were recognized by the Nihon Ki-in and they were awarded the Okura Kishichiro Prize.
As an entrepreneur, Taki has mainly tackled artistic themes; in particular, his achievements in protecting and developing Japan’s food culture are remarkable. In 1996, he founded the corporation Gurunavi with the aim of assisting the management of a wide variety of restaurants that created the rich cuisine of Japan. In 2008, it was listed in the upper section of the Tokyo Stock Market.
Through various endeavors, such as supporting the training of the cooks who support food culture and carrying out a campaign to give awards to the people who support and carry on the tradition of Japan’s food culture, he has led the way in promoting the Japanese cuisine of which we can boast to the world.
Taki has also made major contributions to popularizing public art. Since 1972, he has set up 557 works of art in public facilities in Japan (as of January 2024). Furthermore, over the last 40 years, he has made efforts to promote art by awarding scholarships to the students of over 20 art universities around the world. Taki’s contributions to the promotion of culture and art in all these diverse fields were recognized by the Japanese government, which in 2020 chose him as a Person of Cultural Merit.
Taki has received other awards. In 1999, he was given the Minister for Transportation’s Award for his contributions to traffic culture; his achievements in the world of advertising were recognized by the Minister for the Economy and Industry’s award in 2008; in 2010, he was given the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Prize for his contributions to information communications. In recognition of his creation of enterprises that benefit society, he was given the Harvard Business School Club of Japan Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2009. He has also received many other prizes, including the 2010 Porter Prize for creating enterprises with high profits through innovation in the enterprises that he has founded.