Hal Seki is one of Japan's leading figures in the civic tech movement. In 2013 he founded Code for Japan, a nonprofit bringing citizens, technologists, and governments together to solve public challenges through open collaboration—now a nationwide network of local brigades. His work began with sinsai.info, the volunteer-run crisis-mapping platform he launched after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. A longtime advocate for open data, open source, and open geospatial technology, he has advised national and municipal governments on digital transformation. He also founded Geolonia, a company advancing open location infrastructure.