

Power of perseverance
Had it not been for Kikuo Ibe’s keen observation of things around him and a never-give-up attitude, the G-Shock watches by Casio — which was set up in 1946, specialising in calculators — would never have been made. Ibe is the man credited for creating this line of tough watches in 1983. G-Shock, or Gravitational Shock, was designed to withstand mechanical shock and vibration. In the meeting room of Casio’s R&D office in Ozaku in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, where members of the Singaporean and Russian press had gathered, Ibe related the story of how G-Shock was born.