Takuya Kitazawa

  • Bridging the gap between technology design and real-world user needs across corporate and non-profit contexts.
  • Specialized in AI/ML products, data systems, and digital transformation that prioritize user adoption and minimize implementation risks.
  • Supporting startups, social enterprises, and individual practitioners through strategic assessment, system optimization, and actionable guidance.

Work

2022/09 – Present

Independent Consultant

Self-employed in Canada

ICT4D Digital Transformation ITIL Data Architecture Recommender Systems AI/ML

Partnering with organizations and individuals through technical advisory, focused capability-building, and mentorship to improve how digital systems are designed, evaluated, and used in practice.

Services: Digital system and product evaluation, project diagnostics, targeted technical and strategic guidance.

Find 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

.NET MAUI Project Management Digital Marketing Education Leadership Non-Profit Consulting

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 Malawian professionals, 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)