Kentaro Toyama

Kentaro Toyama is the W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information and Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information. He is also a fellow of MIT's Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values and the author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. His research examines digital technology and social change, including information and communication technologies for development (ICTD), aspiration-based development, theories of social change, and data-centric analysis of social justice issues. Toyama's “Law of Amplification” argues that technology generally amplifies underlying human forces rather than independently producing progress. UMSI faculty profile · Personal website

He was previously a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-founded Microsoft Research India in 2005, serving as its assistant managing director and establishing the Technology for Emerging Markets research group. Before that, he conducted computer vision, multimedia, and artificial intelligence research at Microsoft Research in Redmond and Cambridge. In 2002, he taught mathematics to the inaugural class at Ashesi University in Ghana. In 2006, he co-founded the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD). Personal website

• Current | University of Michigan School of Information | W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information and Professor of Information
• May 1, 2026–April 30, 2027·University of Michigan Faculty Senate·Chair of SACUA (term)
• Co-founded in 2005 (formerly)·Microsoft Research India·Co-founder and Assistant Managing Director; established the Technology for Emerging Markets research group
• 2002·Ashesi University, Ghana·Mathematics Lecturer
• Earlier | University of California, Berkeley; Microsoft Research | Researcher (UC Berkeley); computer vision, multimedia, and artificial intelligence research (Redmond and Cambridge)

• Degree | Harvard University | AB in Physics
• Degree | Yale University | PhD in Computer Science

• 2025 | ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award; inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy Class of 2025. UMSI news
• Year not stated | David Marr Prize in computer vision. Personal website

Sources and verification: This profile was checked against the UMSI faculty profile, Kentaro Toyama's personal website, personal Contact page, personal Publications page, U-M Center for Global Health Equity, and the SACUA chair announcement, accessed 2026-09-23. The Google Scholar and LinkedIn links are retained, but direct access was limited by 429 and 999 responses respectively; no citation metrics or account-internal details were inferred.