Masahiro Hara (born 1957) is a Japanese engineer and

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of law ...

graduate who is best known for inventing the

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

in 1994.

Early life and education

Hara was born in Tokyo in 1957. He studied in the department of electric and electronic engineering at

. He graduated in 1980.

Career

Denso and QR code invention

Hara invented the QR code to track car parts while he was working at the Japanese company Denso Wave, which had a Toyota contract. Hara had been given the task of coming up with a better way of tracking parts used in the automotive industry, and had helped develop a barcode system in the 1980s. One day at work, over a lunchtime game of go, he recognized the game's black and white pattern could be used to encode information. The code was introduced in 1994. In 2021, QR codes were being used to book and track

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

tests and contact tracing. Hara has stated that he would like to develop QR codes for additional medical purposes, including imaging such as x-rays or electrocardiogram data. Hara still works for Denso as of 2022.

Japan International Cooperation Agency

Hara was the chief engineer and advisor for a

Japan International Cooperation Agency The is a governmental agency that delivers the bulk of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the government of Japan. It is chartered with assisting economic and social growth in developing countries, and the promotion of international co ...

's "School For All" program to improve education in

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languages

Awards

In 2014, he and the inventors of the QR code development team were awarded the

European Inventor Award The European Inventor Award(formerly European Inventor of the Year Award, renamed in 2010), are presented annually by the European Patent Office, sometimes supported by the respective Presidency of the Council of the European Union and by the Eur ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hara, Masahiro Living people Hosei University alumni Japanese engineers Japanese inventors 1957 births