Joi Ito is a Japanese-American activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is a founder of multiple organizations, as well as a philanthropist.
Japanese-americanJoi Ito is a Japanese-American activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is a founder of multiple organizations, as well as a philanthropist.
Joi Ito is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer, and scholar. His endeavors in all of these fields have been focused on the interplay of society and technology and are centered around his goal to transform them. His writings as well as his business ventures aim to tackle complex societal problems in the realms of governance, climate, health, and more.
He is currently director of the Center for Radical Transformation at the Chiba Institute of Technology located in Narashino, Japan. He will be taking on the position of trustee at CIT beginning in 2022. He has served as a CEO at Creative Commons and Neoteny Labs amoungamong others, and has held numerous board positions throughout his professional career. Joi co-founded the companies Neotony, Digital Garage and Safecast. He is still a partner at investment firm Neotony, a Boardboard member at internet group and investment firm Digital Garage and an advisory board member at the environmental data focused non-profit Safecast. Dr. Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab from 2011 to 2019.He is currently a guest researcher at Keio University. He is also a member of the Council for Digital Society, part of the Digital Agency of Japan.
Mr. Ido did not graduate from many of these establishments; however, however he was awarded various acknowledgements and honorary degrees including Doctor of Letters Degree from The New School in New York City (2013) and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Tufts University (2015).