Hiromi Okuda, 60, has been working at the intersection of IT and social issues for more than 30 years. As the founder and CEO of , which helps bring tech events to Japan, she has been building bridges between local and international tech communities.
1. How did you get interested in social welfare and IT? I studied abroad at the University of Mumbai in India and did field work for a year at Asha Daan, a facility established by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. That experience made me want to address the huge gap in the standards of living I was seeing. At the same time, I realized that even if I continued to work in the field, I was just a 24-year-old who didn't have any money, an organization behind me or a well-connected background — so my impact would be limited.
2. And you saw more potential in IT? This was in 1989. When I came back to Japan, I noticed two things: The first was the power of IT. At that time, guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were really famous and talking about changing the world with IT. Tim Berners-Lee was saying that the internet was going to make the world flat, and these connections would lead to world peace. So I began to think tech had the potential to address the poverty gap.
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