Kentaro Toyama is a computer scientist and international development researcher, who works on the relationship of technology and global development. He is the W. K. Kellogg Professor at the University of Michigan School of InformationMcDonald, Amy. (2014) "How Google and Facebook are helping the underprivileged — or not". Deseret News National. Aug. 13, 2014 and author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology.http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/book/hardcover/geek-heresy/9781610395281 "The Myth of Scale" video on YouTube He is also a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT.
Toyama was founding assistant director of Microsoft Research India, a Bangalore-based computer science laboratory, where he established the Technology for Emerging Markets group which conducts interdisciplinary research in the field of "information and communication technologies for development" (ICT4D).Bahree, Megha. (2008) "Computing at the Bottom of the Pyramid". Forbes Magazine. Sept. 29, 2008.Radjou, Navi. (2009) "Microsoft reinvents its global R&D model". Harvard Business Review Blogs. June 25, 2009.Microsoft Research. (n.d.) "Kentaro Toyama". Retrieved Oct. 15, 2010. Together with AnnaLee Saxenian and Raj Reddy, he co-founded the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, a global platform for rigorous, academic, interdisciplinary research in ICT4D.Microsoft News Center. (2009) "Research & (Economic) Development". Apr. 17, 2009.
Education Toyama graduated from the American School in Japan. Toyama received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University, and an A.B. in Physics from Harvard University.
Research and career Toyama's research spans several disparate areas, including ICT4D, development studies, computer vision, human-computer interaction, geographic information systems, and multimedia.Stross, Randall. (2010) "Two billion laptops? It may not be enough". The New York Times. Apr. 17, 2010.O'Connell, Pamela Licalzi. (2003) "Online Diary: Location Shot". The New York Times. Oct. 23, 2003. He is best known for his research in ICT4D, which includes technology projects such as MultiPoint,Roush, Wade. (2006) "Microsoft in India". Technology Review. June 1, 2006.Vance, Ashlee. (2008) "Microsoft goes far afield to study emerging markets". The New York Times. Oct. 26, 2008. Text-Free User Interfaces, Warana Unwired, and Digital Green, as well as observational studies of rural telecenters,Toyama, Kentaro and Ken Keniston. (2008) "Telecenter Debates". In Telecentre Magazine. March, 2008.Kuriyan, R., Ray, I., and Toyama, K. (2008) "Information and Communication Technologies for Development: The Bottom of the Pyramid Model in Practice". The Information Society 24(2):93-104. Mar. 2008. mobile phones in developing countries,Smyth, T. N., Kumar, S., Medhi, I., and Toyama, K. (2010) "Where there's a will there's a way: mobile media sharing in urban india". In Proceedings of the 28th international Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '10. ACM, New York, NY, 753-762. and the limits of technology for international development.Toyama, Kentaro. (2010) "The Myth of Scale". TEDxTokyo. May 15, 2010.
He is an outspoken critic of the "technological utopianism" that he sees in initiatives such as One Laptop Per Child, and argues that technology only magnifies existing human intent and capacity. A two-part essay making this point appears in a Boston Review forum.Toyama, Kentaro. (2010) "Can Technology End Poverty". Boston Review, Nov/Dec 2010.Toyama, Kentaro. (2010) "Response". Boston Review, Nov/Dec 2010. The argument is expanded upon and extended further in Geek Heresy. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
Toyama's research in computer vision involves automated tracking of objects in video. In 2002, he taught calculus at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana.Ashesi University. (n.d.) "Visiting Faculty". Retrieved Oct. 15, 2010.
Awards and honors In 2025, Toyama was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy and also won a SIGCHI Societal Impact Award.
Toyama was also named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to the innovation and critique of digital technology for socio-economic development and social justice".
At the University of Michigan, he has won several awards, such as the University of Michigan School of Information Michael D. Cohen Outstanding Service Award (2021), the University of Michigan Public Engagement Faculty Fellowship (2020), and the University of Michigan School of Information Diversity Award (2019).
In 2016, Toyama won the PROSE Award in Business, Finance & Management for his book Geek Heresy.
A paper he co-authored with Andrew Blake was awarded the Marr Prize at the 2001 International Conference on Computer Vision.IEEE Computer Society. (n.d.) "CVPR and ICCV Best Paper Awards". Retrieved Oct. 15, 2010. That work was a precursor to some of the technology in Microsoft's Kinect product.Rowan, David. (2010) "Kinect for Xbox 360: The inside story of Microsoft's secret 'Project Natal'". Retrieved Dec. 15, 2014.
References
External links
Personal website