Takuya Kitazawa

  • Digital enablement expert with 10+ years in startups, Big Tech, and non-profit.
  • Specialized in scalable data-driven solutions and human-centred tech design.
  • Trusted advisor for organizations seeking practical, sustainable technology interventions that don't deepen existing inequalities.

Work

2022/09 – Present

Independent Practitioner - Digital Participation & Inclusion

Self-employed in Canada

Enabling individuals and organizations to thrive in the digital age through strategic technology consulting, responsible AI implementation, and inclusive digital transformation—specializing in sustainable solutions for underserved communities and resource-constrained environments.

Services: Product development, training, mentorship, strategic planning and advisory. Learn more at takuti.me/services.

2025/01 – 2025/12

Acting ICT Director

2023/08 – 2024/12

Information and Communication Technology Advisor

Emerge Livelihoods (formerly Mzuzu Entrepreneur Hub), Mzuzu, Malawi

C# .NET Digital Marketing International Development Leadership Corporate Strategy

Canadian international volunteer through World University Service of Canada, advancing equitable ICT access in Malawi. Featured in "Spotlight on Takuya: An Uplifting Volunteer Experience."

  • Assessment: Conducted organization-wide ICT capacity assessment and strategic recommendations.
  • Training: Trained 19 Malawian youth (9F, 10M, aged 18-31) in 3-month Python programming course.
  • Optimization: Improved Flask web application achieving 50% Lighthouse Performance gains.
  • Development: Led Android e-learning app development and Google Play launch.

Senior Leadership: Managed 5-10 professionals in Malawi, driving strategic technology initiatives and organizational digital transformation for non-profit operations.

2021/08 – 2022/08

Software Development Engineer - Personalization

Amazon, Vancouver, BC, Canada

TypeScript Scala Python AWS Apache Spark Apache Airflow Recommender Systems

Recommender Systems: Developed Amazon's "Buy Again" repeat purchase recommendation system, implementing frontend components and backend data pipelines.

2020/10 – 2021/08

Senior Product Manager

2021/02 – 2021/08

Treasure Data (Canada), Vancouver, BC, Canada

2020/10 – 2021/02

Treasure Data, Tokyo, Japan

Python Data Visualization Predictive Modeling Digital Marketing Product Management

Managed product development in digital marketing, analytics, and ML: data visualization, A/B testing, predictive customer scoring.

Developed solution templates within Treasure Boxes ecosystem to enable strategic customer data use.

2020/02 – 2020/09

Product Manager

2019/04 – 2020/01

Staff Engineer

2018/08 – 2019/03

Senior Engineer

Arm, Tokyo, Japan

(Spin-off Treasure Data as an independent organization)

Python Apache Hive IoT Data Science Product Management

Engineering: Advanced big data, ML, and IoT integration across retail, gaming, and media. Led Python SDK development for enterprise analytics platform.

Product Management: Coordinated multi-regional teams for customer data platform, contributing to "Strong Performer" in Forrester Wave™ Customer Analytics Technologies Q3 2020. Co-led multi-touch attribution solution with Arm Research.

2017/02 – 2018/07

Data Science Engineer

Treasure Data, Tokyo, Japan

(Acquired by Arm)

Java Apache Hive Apache Spark Ruby on Rails

Contributed to Apache Hivemall, a scalable ML library for Apache Hive and Spark.

Led development of out-of-the-box ML solutions, managing full lifecycle from analysis to customer onboarding.

2015/08 – 2016/06

Part-time Software Engineer

Rakuten Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

Python PHP Recommender Systems

Algorithm Research: Developed recommendation algorithms for online golf booking service. Conducted assessments and proposed improvements based on baseline study.

2012/02 – 2013/02

Part-time Software Engineer

HANASAKE PICTURES, Fukushima, Japan

Objective-C PHP Image Processing

Mobile & Web Development: Developed PHP applications for avatar-based social networking and iOS app for virtual trial fitting using Poisson Image Blending.

2011/10 – 2013/03

Part-time Research Assistant / Web Developer

The University of Aizu, Fukushima, Japan

Ruby on Rails Data Visualization GIS

Research Application Development: Led development of Ruby on Rails web application for regional weather monitoring with interactive geospatial data visualization using d3.js.

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Education

2015/04 – 2017/03

Master of Information Science and Technology

The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Thesis: Persistently Cold-Starting Online Item Recommendation for Implicit Feedback Data | GPA: 4.0 | Credential: WES Verified

Experience: Student volunteer RecSys 2016, ML Summer School Kyoto 2015

R&D Intern Silver Egg Technology: Applied novel recommendation algorithms

ML Intern Treasure Data: Apache Hivemall UDFs, anomaly detection system

2011/04 – 2015/03

B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering

The University of Aizu, Fukushima, Japan

Thesis: User Modeling in Folksonomies: Relational Clustering and Tag Weighting | GPA: 3.97

Honors: President's Award (Summa Cum Laude, 2015), Dean's List (2012–2015), Best Paper Prize IEEE Sendai (2014), Innovative Award Business Plan Competition (2012)

Activities: TA Numerical Analysis (20+ students), Security & Programming Camp (2011)