Meet man, the genius who created QR Code that is now used in UPI payments, his name is..., he is from...

India.com

29-04-2025

Today, QR codes are everywhere — whether it's scanning a restaurant menu, making digital payments, boarding a plane, or verifying a product's authenticity. These small black-and-white squares have made accessing information and completing tasks faster and more convenient. While they may seem simple, the story behind their invention is truly remarkable. It all began with a brilliant engineer named Masahiro Hara.
Masahiro Hara, a Japanese engineer, is the person who invented the QR code. His innovation has changed not just how businesses work but also how people interact with technology all around the world.
Hara was born in Tokyo in 1957. As a child, he loved solving puzzles and was always curious about how things worked. He later studied at the Tokyo University of Science, one of Japan's top universities, where he sharpened his skills in engineering and technology.
After finishing his education, Hara started working at Denso Corporation, a major manufacturer of car parts and a part of the Toyota Group. There, he worked on developing barcode scanning systems to make car manufacturing more efficient.
However, traditional barcodes had their problems i.e. they could hold only a small amount of information and needed to be lined up just right for scanners to read them.
Outside of his work, Hara is a family man. He is married and has children, although he prefers to keep his personal life private. Even today, he remains interested in how QR codes are being used in new ways, such as for cashless payments and fighting fake products. How the QR code was born
Masahiro Hara realized there had to be a better way to store and scan more information than what traditional barcodes allowed. Barcodes could only hold limited data and had to be scanned in a specific direction. So, Hara set out to create something new.
He got inspiration from a classic Japanese board game called 'Go,' which uses black and white pieces placed on a square grid. This gave him the idea for a two-dimensional code that could be scanned from any angle.
After months of hard work with his team at Denso, Hara created the QR code in 1994.
Unlike standard barcodes, QR codes could hold much more information — even letters and numbers — and could be scanned instantly from any direction. It was a breakthrough technology.
Originally, QR codes were meant for tracking car parts in factories. But soon, people found many other ways to use them in shopping, hospitals, transport, movies, and more. What helped QR codes spread even faster was that Denso Wave, the company behind it, didn't charge anyone to use it. They chose not to patent the QR code, so developers and businesses around the world could use it for free and make their own versions.
Even though it became one of the most widely used tools in the world, Hara and his team never made money from the invention as they simply wanted it to be useful for everyone.