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Athan’s life is centered around music, technology innovation and MIDI. He started his music career playing keyboards with Herb Reed of the Platters and Jerry Martini from Sly and the Family Stone. He then moved into the music instrument industry working for Korg Inc in Tokyo in developing the Korg M1, the best-selling hardware synthesizer of all time. He joined Yamaha as a Director of Marketing and was involved with the product planning and marketing for every Yamaha synthesizer from the S80 to the Montage. He is the current President of the MIDI Association (www.MIDI.org).