ANN ARBOR, MI - Toshi Hori, president of GEViCAM Inc., was presented with the 2009 Automated Imaging Achievement Award during a ceremony held at the Automated Imaging Association’s (AIA) 17th Annual Business Conference in San Diego. This prestigious award is the industry’s top leadership award.

Hori was nominated by AIA members and selected from an impressive pool of candidates by its board of directors, who wished to recognize Hori for his technology innovations and his outstanding contributions to the machine vision and imaging industry. The award was presented by Michael Cyros, AIA’s president and president of Allied Vision Technologies Inc.

“Toshi’s many contributions include machine vision technology inventions he brought to the industry as a pioneering young engineer that are still used in the industry today,” says Cyros. “During his long and distinguished career he worked selflessly to bring standardized camera interfaces to our industry, starting with Camera Link® and again getting involved in the GigE Vision™ protocol. Using standard interfaces has allowed manufacturers to reduce costs and bring their products to market faster; this is something that benefits both the manufacturers and users in our industry.”

Hori has over three decades of experience and leadership in machine vision. In 1982, Hori founded PULNiX America, and was an early pioneer in the use of CCD cameras in commercial applications. In 2003 PULNiX was acquired by the JAI Group and he served as President/CEO for PULNiX and Chief Technology Officer for the JAI Group until he left to establish GEViCAM Inc. GEViCAM focuses on the development and production of advanced GigE based conventional and neural network enabled cameras. His many inventions include the electronic shutter CCD camera for factory automation, progressive scan interline-transfer CCD cameras, the original Channel Link camera and neural network-based smart cameras.

The annual award, sponsored by the AIA, honors one industry leader for outstanding contributions in promoting market acceptance of industrial and/or scientific imaging. “I’m proud to see Toshi’s name among the influential group of innovative leaders who have been given this award. He has been so dedicated to the global standards process and has really helped the machine vision industry embrace both Camera Link® and GigE Vision," says Dana Whalls, AIA’s managing director. “Of course receiving this award is not the end of Toshi’s innovation for our industry, I’ll certainly be watching his work with neural networks in the future.”

The award is presented each year at the AIA’s Business Conference, a members-only event that brings key industry executives together for two and a half days of networking, important machine vision business discussions and presentations that explore emerging markets and new technologies.