Joi Ito: Innovation in Open Networks

Joichi Ito

Ito is recognized as one of the world's leading thinkers and writers on innovation, global technology policy, and the role of the Internet in transforming society.

A vocal advocate of emergent democracy, privacy, and Internet freedom, Ito is board chair (and previously served as CEO) of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization focused on developing and supporting legal and technical tools to help everyone from artists to governments, encouraging legal sharing and reuse. He played a key role in expanding the funding and global reach of the organization, which now has affiliates in more than 70 countries. To date, over 500 million pieces of content have been published under Creative Commons licenses.

Ito also sits on the board of directors of the Mozilla Foundation, which promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet; WITNESS, an organization that empowers human rights defenders with the power of video; and Global Voices, a network of bloggers focusing on free speech and promoting the less-heard voices around the world. Through his blog he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community.

Ito was a pioneer in realizing the power and potential of the Internet, and in 1994, at the age of 28, founded Eccosys, which eventually became Digital Garage, one of the most actively traded public Japanese Internet companies. He also helped establish and later became CEO of PSINet Japan (formerly IIKK), the first commercial Internet service provider in Japan, and helped found Infoseek Japan, the first commercial search engine in that country. He was an early investor in more than 40 companies, including Flickr, Six Apart, Last.fm, Kongregate, Kickstarter, and Twitter. He was founder and CEO of the venture capital firm Neoteny Co., Ltd.; and general partner of Neoteny Labs Startup 1, an early-stage investment fund.

A native of Japan, Ito is very much a global citizen, and has worked and lived for extended periods in the United States, Japan, and the Middle East. He has received numerous honors, including TIME magazine's "Cyber-Elite" listing in 1997 (at age 31), selection by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow," and Newsweek's "Leaders of The Pack" in 2005. BusinessWeek named him one of the "25 Most Influential People on the Web" in 2008.

A self-directed learner, Ito established himself as an early force in advancing Internet business and culture, though he never completed a college degree. Throughout his career, he has worked closely with academia to explore new approaches for learning and collaboration. In the United States, he is an affiliate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and in Japan he is senior visiting researcher at Keio University SFC Research Institute and a part-time lecturer at Keo Graduate School of Media Design. For the past 10 years he has served as a juror for Prix Ars Electronica.