Kentaro Toyama

W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information, School of Information

including computer simulations of complex systems for policy-making, socio-economic development

Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. He is the author of “Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology.” Toyama conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how the world’s low-income communities interact with digital technology and to invent new ways for technology to support their socio-economic development, including computer simulations of complex systems for policy-making. Previously, Toyama did research in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and human-computer interaction at Microsoft and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Ghana.

Interacting with children at a Seva Mandir school in Rajasthan, India.
Interacting with children at a Seva Mandir school in Rajasthan, India.

Accomplishments and Awards