Tetsuya Sanada
Founder and president at BLOCKSMITH
Details
Tetsuya Sanada is the founder and president of KLab Inc. and its subsidiary BLOCKSMITH. In 1989, he started up a content provider based on voice and fax using Dial Q2, a premium-rate telephone number service also touted as the predecessor of the popular i-mode mobile internet service. 1997 saw Sanada joining the company ACCESS, where he contributed to i-mode's initial design, in addition to browser development. In 1998, he created CYBIRD, a company focused on various mobile media, of which he was the Vice President and CTO. Come 2000, Sanada set up yet another company, this time to serve as a mobile software R&D branch for CYBIRD, known as KLab (called "K Laboratory" at the time). Sanada maintained the position of KLab CEO until he was promoted Director and Chairman in March 2019.