Yoshihiro Kato is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2017-18.  Kato is a senior software architect of Future Architect, Inc., an IT consulting firm in Japan.  Kato has 16 years of experience in software engineering, specifically a distributed system design.  Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, Kato was a visiting researching of Blockchain and Fintech at Nippon Institute for Research Advancement.  Kato graduated from Shizuoka University and received a masters degree in computer science.