Geek Heresy

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After a decade designing technologies meant to address education, health, and global poverty, award winning computer scientist Kentaro Toyama came to a difficult conclusion Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets can t deliver.Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don t know what to do with them Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people centric view of social change Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana s first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it s human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward. New Download [ Geek Heresy ] Author [ Kentaro Toyama ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr I love a good debunking and Toyama delivers Toyama is to techno utopia what Gary Taubes has been to the low fat diet Just as Gary Taubes has presented reams of evidence and conducted repeated, thorough debunkings of fat makes us a fat and a calorie is a calorie, Toyama debunks the unsubstantiated claims that spreading devices and Internet connectivity around causes positive social change It doesn t Stop saying it does.I worked in software development for 20 years, have ...Much as Kentaro s amazing book is a bait and switch, it was well worth the read The promise, as perceived by me at any rate, was that one of the smartest people I know would walk me through his Damascene conversion from leading computer scientist and engineer to doubter.The first half of the book delivers on this and provides an alternative to the standard theory of technology evangelists who only see benefits, namely that tech merely amplifies Once you get the machines involved, whatever wa Much as Kentaro s amazing book is a bait and switch, it was well worth the read The promise, as perceived by me at any rate, was that one of the smartest people I know would walk me through his Damascene conversion from leading computer scientist and engineer to doubter.The first half of the book delivers on this and provides an alternative to the standard theory of technology evangelists who only see benefits, namely that tech merely amplifies Once you get t...I know that the use of stories in non fiction is encouraged by editors these days, but I thought this book relied too much on narratives of individuals All the examples of individual experiences got in the way of the bigger picture, rather than making it clear The concept ...Toyama takes aim at the popular idea of technological utopianism that technology, often in the form of prepackaged interventions, will solve problems particularly in education Instead, he argues, technology is only a tool that is shaped by its users and ...Disclaimer I love this book in large part because it confirmed a nagging feeling that I have always had but that became evenprominent as I inserted myself in the world of technology by becoming a coder.Toyama writes a compelling, if slightly wordy which he acknowledges at the end in a good natured tone , argument against believing and using packaged technological interventions as panacea for all social ills While the conclusion seems so obvious once the reader weaves through his stori Disclaimer I love this book in large part because it confirmed a nagging feeling that I have always had but that became evenprominent as I inserted myself in the world of technology by becoming a coder.Toyama writes a compelling, if slightly wordy which he acknowledges at the end in a good natured tone , argument against believing and using packaged technological interventions as panacea for all social ills While the conclusion seems so obvious once the reader weaves through h...This book is basically an argument against technological utopianism from a guy who used to be a technological utopian In other words, after trying to effect social change via technology solutions as part of his research, he basically discovered that you can t bring about social change by dropping technological solutions into the situation While a pilot project may seem to work, you won t be able to get the same results as you scale it out One example of this is the attempt to transform ed This book is basically an argument against technological utopianism from a guy who used to be a technological utopian In other words, after trying to effect social change via technology solutions as part of his research, he basically discovered that you can t bring about social change by droppin...Quite disappointed The first part was good The second part went unnecessarily intoof social psychology which I did not expect in this book The conclusions section in my opinion failed to effectively summarize the propositions in the book and it seemed to me that the first part wa...Tech insider, Kentaro Toyama, explains the problem of how the culture of technology and innovation has too often made the assumption of technology itself leading to change for the good of society Toyama s insider s knowhow places him in a unique position in the tech debate Without being a anti tech paranoiac, Toyama tells us how technology works and how it doesn t.His general thesis is that many companies who wish to do good simply come up with what he calls, packaged interventions think Tech insider, K...I was familiar with some of the theory, was looking forexamples of projects in developing countries and what they learnt.For the most part, this was an interesting and enjoyable read, but after careful reflection, I think it went wrong somewhere Key to understanding the book is that the title is very misleading, and presumably imposed on Toyama by a publisher struggling to find the elevator pitch Really only one chapter covers technology, the broader thrust of the first section is on the failures of technocratic policy making and one size fits all solutions that pay no account to the local context This cove For the most part, this was an interesting and enjoyable read, but after careful reflection, I think it went wrong somewhere Key to understanding the book is that the title is very misleading, and presumably imposed on Toyama by a publisher struggling to find the elevator pitch Really only one chapter covers technology, the broader thrust of the first section is on the failures of technocratic policy making and one size fits all solutions that pay no account to the local context This covers a lot of the same ground as Bill Easterly s The White Man s Burden one of my top ten books on development but diverges radically in the second section Whilst Easterly proposes development efforts should focus on searching for pragmatic ways to fix local problems rather than ambitious, plans to transform the world Toyama goes in completely the opposite direction Rather than attempting to find solutions to what appear to be the ...

Geek Heresy
  • English
  • 05 December 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 352 pages
  • 161039528X
  • Kentaro Toyama
  • Geek Heresy