Jin IGARASHI is Senior software engineer specializing in GIS, information technology, water, and sanitation fields with over 13 years of work experience in Japan and Eastern Africa. Holds an MSc (Eng) in Water, Sanitation, and Health Engineering degree with distinction from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

During my master’s dissertation, I researched the full lifecycle costs of urban sanitation systems under the CACTUS (Climate and Costs in Urban Sanitation) project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A case study for Narok town, Kenya was conducted to estimate the cost of the urban sanitation system over the sanitation value chain. Currently pursuing an MSc in Computer Science Artificial Intelligence at the University of York since January 2024 as a part-time online student.

Began my career developing various GIS applications at Fujitsu in Japan. Subsequently, worked in Eastern Africa (Kenya and Rwanda) on water asset management and Non-Revenue Water (NRW) management as a GIS specialist in Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) projects. During this time, I established a sustainable approach to maintaining geospatial applications for managing water assets by developing open-source software on GitHub. I maintain personal partnerships with water utilities in Kenya and Rwanda to continue supporting their WASH efforts as a volunteer.

Transitioned back to the software engineering industry after JICA projects, focusing on developing geospatial software in various companies in Japan before being enrolled at the University of Leeds for my master in 2021. Since December 2021, I started working for UNDP to develop new web-based open-source geospatial applications to assist non-geospatial skilled UNDP staff and policymakers in easily visualizing and analyzing spatial datasets.

I am passionate about driving innovation in the WASH field due to my background in information technologies and WASH experience.