Junto was born in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, 1987.
B.A. of Arts in Environmental Information at Keio University.
He was attracted by the intricacies of the Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and started to learn it independently while at college in 2007.
His interest grew, and he started volunteering to create movies in JSL after noticing the lack of entertainment choices for the Deaf.
He founded ShuR Group in 2008, after realizing that there wasn’t significant infrastructure around sign language that would enable the Deaf to participate in society. The company offers an interpretation service via video chat (VRS), as well as a crowd-sourced online sign language dictionary with the goal to “realize the social equality between The Deaf and the Hearing.”
Junto was selected as the first Ashoka Fellow in East Asia, and the first Japanese Forbes 30 Under 30. In 2016, he won the first Rolex Award Young Laureates in Japan. Junto is a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum, and has spoken at TEDx Tokyo in 2012 about his work.
He obtained a Japanese Sign Language Interpreter license from the Ministry of Health、Labor and Welfare in 2013