Joichi Ito (born June 19, 1966), more commonly known as Joi Ito, is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan.

Joi Ito is a speaker of Skoll World Forum 2010. The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship accelerates the impact of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage and large scale social change. The 2010 Skoll World Forum focuses on catalysing collaboration for large scale change.

Photo my Mizuka

Ito was listed by Time Magazine as a member of the "Cyber-Elite" in 1997. Ito was listed as one of the 50 "Stars of Asia" by BusinessWeek and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in 2000. He was selected by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow".

Photo by Mizuka

Austin Convention Center Ballroom D, Sat. March 13, 5PM-6PM, Creative Commons, Open Innovation and World Peace. South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event.

I believe that the success of the Internet has two parts. The first part is the market- driven business side, which has made the Internet affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the Internet great.

Joi first hits on how CC helps innovators (especially those online) lower the transaction costs when dealing with cultural works restricted by copyright law. Moreover, CC has the potential lower costs in much of the same way that the openness of the early Internet enabled start-ups like Google and eBay to lower their transaction costs and innovate. Joi then discusses some of the successes CC has seen in the last year.

Interview transcript: Joi Ito, chief executive of Creative Commons, talks about its licensing – and how Twitter can make money from mobiles..."Getting users, getting distribution, getting attention, becoming viral - that's the single most difficult thing on the internet to do. And just about every product fails because they don't have any users. Entrepreneurs tend not to focus on that."

DAY 2 - DEC 10, 2008 Sharing Love Joichi Ito CEO, Creative Commons. LeWeb is # 1 Internet European event with about 2400 participants from 50 countries.

He maintains a weblog (joi.ito.com) where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community.

excited and at large