Geek heresy: rescuing social change from the cult of technology
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Language:
English
Description
"In 2004, Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. Together with his team, he invented electronic devices for under-resourced urban schools and developed digital platforms for remote agrarian communities. But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own. Technologists and policy-makers love to boast about modern innovation, and in their excitement, they exuberantly tout technology's boon to society. But what have our gadgets actually accomplished? Over the last four decades, America saw an explosion of new technologies - from the Internet to the iPhone, from Google to Facebook - but in that same period, the rate of poverty stagnated at a stubborn 13%, only to rise in the recent recession. So, a golden age of innovation in the world's most advanced country did nothing for our most prominent social ill. Toyama's warning resounds: Don't believe the hype! Technology is never the main driver of social progress. Geek Heresy inoculates us against the glib rhetoric of tech utopians by revealing that technology is only an amplifier of human conditions. By telling the moving stories of extraordinary people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his lucrative engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes children from dollar-a-day families into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Toyama shows that even in a world steeped in technology, social challenges are best met with deeply social solutions. "--
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Subjects
Subjects
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Business Ethics
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development
Computers / Social Aspects / General
Economic aspects
Social aspects
Social change
Technological innovations
Technological innovations -- Economic aspects
Technological innovations -- Social aspects
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development
Computers / Social Aspects / General
Economic aspects
Social aspects
Social change
Technological innovations
Technological innovations -- Economic aspects
Technological innovations -- Social aspects
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects
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ISBN:
9781610395281
9781494594589
9781494594589
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | 219a8d50-9295-4496-22f8-cdaa71b03a5e |
---|---|
Grouping Title | geek heresy rescuing social change from the cult of technology |
Grouping Author | toyama kentaro |
Grouping Category | book |
Last Grouping Update | 2019-11-29 02:07:18AM |
Last Indexed | 2019-12-10 02:52:20AM |
Solr Details
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accelerated_reader_reading_level | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
auth_author2 | Pratt, Sean. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
author | Toyama, Kentaro. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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author_display | Toyama, Kentaro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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detailed_location_catalog | Wright Farms - Adult Nonfiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
display_description | "In 2004, Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. Together with his team, he invented electronic devices for under-resourced urban schools and developed digital platforms for remote agrarian communities. But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own. Technologists and policy-makers love to boast about modern innovation, and in their excitement, they exuberantly tout technology's boon to society. But what have our gadgets actually accomplished? Over the last four decades, America saw an explosion of new technologies - from the Internet to the iPhone, from Google to Facebook - but in that same period, the rate of poverty stagnated at a stubborn 13%, only to rise in the recent recession. So, a golden age of innovation in the world's most advanced country did nothing for our most prominent social ill. Toyama's warning resounds: Don't believe the hype! Technology is never the main driver of social progress. Geek Heresy inoculates us against the glib rhetoric of tech utopians by revealing that technology is only an amplifier of human conditions. By telling the moving stories of extraordinary people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his lucrative engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes children from dollar-a-day families into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Toyama shows that even in a world steeped in technology, social challenges are best met with deeply social solutions. "-- | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
format_catalog | Book eAudiobook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
format_category_catalog | Audio Books Books eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
id | 219a8d50-9295-4496-22f8-cdaa71b03a5e | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
isbn | 9781494594589 9781610395281 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
item_details
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last_indexed | 2019-12-10T09:52:20.78Z | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lexile_score | -1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
literary_form | Non Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
literary_form_full | Non Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
local_callnumber_catalog | BUSINESS i | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
owning_library_catalog | All Anythink Libraries | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
owning_location_catalog | Wright Farms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
primary_isbn | 9781610395281 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
publishDate | 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
record_details
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recordtype | grouped_work | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
scoping_details_catalog
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
subject_facet | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Business Ethics BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development Computers / Social Aspects / General Social change TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects Technological innovations -- Economic aspects Technological innovations -- Social aspects | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
title_display | Geek heresy : rescuing social change from the cult of technology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
title_full | Geek heresy : rescuing social change from the cult of technology / Kentaro Toyama Geek heresy : rescuing social change from the cult of technology [electronic resource] / Kentaro Toyama | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
title_short | Geek heresy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
title_sub | rescuing social change from the cult of technology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
topic_facet | Economic aspects Social aspects Social change TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects Technological innovations |