Chieko Asakawa is an IBM fellow. After joining IBM Japan in 1985, she began working on research in information accessibility. Since 2014, she has been serving as an IBM distinguished service professor at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2018, she moved to IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Since 2021, she concurrently serves as chief executive director of the Japanese National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan).

Her initial contribution to the field started from braille digitalisation and moved onto the web accessibility, including the world’s first practical voice browser. In 2009, Asakawa became the first Japanese female IBM fellow. Since 2010, Chieko is focusing on real world accessibility to help the visually impaired to better comprehend their surroundings and navigate the world by the power of AI. As the first step, she worked on NavCog, an indoor navigation system for the blind that allows them to move around indoor locations. Then, she moved on to the AI suitcase, a navigational mobility robot, that helps the blind explore in a city. The robot recognises surrounding information, such as pedestrians, obstacles for the safe navigation.

In 2013, the government of Japan awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon to Dr. Asakawa for her outstanding contributions to accessibility research. She was elected as a foreign member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2017, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) in 2019. She also received American Foundation for the Blind 2020 Helen Keller Achievement Award.