Hiromi Okuda, 60, has been working at the intersection of IT and social issues for more than 30 years. As the founder and CEO of Wiz. Group, which helps bring tech events to Japan, she has been building bridges between local and international tech communities.

1. How did you get interested in social welfare and IT? I studied abroad at the University of Mumbai in India and did field work for a year at Asha Daan, a facility established by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. That experience made me want to address the huge gap in the standards of living I was seeing. At the same time, I realized that even if I continued to work in the field, I was just a 24-year-old who didn't have any money, an organization behind me or a well-connected background — so my impact would be limited.

2. And you saw more potential in IT? This was in 1989. When I came back to Japan, I noticed two things: The first was the power of IT. At that time, guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were really famous and talking about changing the world with IT. Tim Berners-Lee was saying that the internet was going to make the world flat, and these connections would lead to world peace. So I began to think tech had the potential to address the poverty gap.