Oki Kibatarō

In this Japanese name, the family name is "Oki".

Oki Kibatarō
Nationality	Japanese
Education	Tokyo Imperial University
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Known for	Oki Electric Industry

Oki Kibatarō (沖 牙太郎^?, 1848–1906) was an engineer formerly employed at a Japanese Ministry of Industry (Kōbushō) factory. In 1877, only a year after Graham Bell's invention, Kōbushō had started an effort to make telephone receivers by reverse engineering and Oki was in the team that came up with the first prototype.^[1] In January 1881, convinced that the nation was about to enter the age of communications, Oki founded Meikōsha, which was later renamed Oki Electric Industry. The company manufactured the first telephones in Japan in 1881, only five years after the device was invented by Bell ^[1].

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Odagiri, Hiroyuki (1996). Technology and Industrial Development in Japan. Clarendon Press, Oxford. pp. 161. ISBN 0-19-828802-6. 

Persondata
Name	Oki, Kibataro
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1848
Place of birth
Date of death	1906
Place of death