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Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, by Kentaro Toyama
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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. 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, but in that same period, the rate of poverty stagnated at a stubborn 13 percent, 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, Toyama shows that even in a world steeped in technology, social challenges are best met with deeply social solutions.
- Sales Rank: #3939871 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-23
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.40" h x .60" w x 5.30" l,
- Running time: 9 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
Review
"A white paper largely of interest to education theorists and aid specialists, with occasional asides for the Jaron Lanier/Nicholas Carr crowd." ---Kirkus
From the Inside Flap
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 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 children from dollar-a-day families 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.
About the Author
Kentaro Toyama is the W. K. Kellogg Associate Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan's School of Information. He is also coeditor in chief of the journal Information Technologies and International Development and cofounder of Microsoft Research India. Kentaro lives in Michigan.
Sean Pratt, a working actor for over twenty-five years, has performed at numerous regional theaters around the country. He is the author of To Be or Wanna Be, and he has recorded over seven hundred books in just about every genre, earning eight AudioFile Earphones Awards and four Audie Award nominations.
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Life-changing book
By Bill Thies
For anyone who aspires to use technology for social change, this book could change your life. It certainly changed mine.
Kentaro Toyama takes us on an intellectual yet deeply personal journey through his many years of seeking technology solutions for global poverty. On the one hand, his search was wildly successful: though the book does not tout it, his projects gained widespread acclaim for their creativity and rigor, and he became an authoritative leader of an international research community with similar aspirations. If anyone in the world was going to demonstrate how technology could help the developing world, it was Toyama.
Unexpectedly, however, Toyama's search led him to an inconvenient truth: that technology may NOT be the most important agent of social change. With disarming honesty and humility, Toyama explains how -- time and time again -- the technologies invented by himself and colleagues were most useful to highly motivated and capable organizations, rather than the poor and downcast communities that he sought to help. In other words, technology always served as an amplifier of existing social forces -- including existing inequalities -- rather than offering any particular benefit for the poor.
Due to his unique insider's perspective, Toyama's critique of technocratic solutions is no less incisive than William Easterly's critique of the aid industry. From the slums of Bangalore, to the classrooms of Accra, to the rice fields of Jharkhand and the streets of Karachi, Toyama offers a vivid yet intimate narrative that gently leads the reader to his hard-hitting conclusions. Along the way, Toyama also provides a masterful review of related research findings (including 90 pages of detailed notes and references).
"Geek Heresy" is far more than a critique, however. In the second half of the book, Toyama offers a compelling alternative to a technology-centric view of social change. Instead of investing in technology, we should invest in people. Instead of seeking quick and flashy changes, we should slowly nurture human hearts, minds, and wills. Instead of assessing people's "needs", we should assess their aspirations, and offer mentorship to help fulfill those aspirations.
Ambitious and powerfully presented, Toyama's vision for development holds its own against other heavyweight philosophers, from Adam Smith to Amartya Sen. It forces us to reconsider our assumptions about human growth and well-being, and inspires us to create a brighter and more sustainable future. Transcending his background as a technology researcher, Toyama's message will appeal to innovators, educators, and policy makers alike.
If every mid-career professional could spend a decade traveling the world to apply their talents for the benefit of marginalized populations, I am sure there would be no shortage of epiphanies on hand. But for the vast majority of us who are unable to do that, this book brings the epiphany to the comfort of your armchair. Buy it, read it, share it, but beware: it might just change your worldview.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
makes you think hard
By KristofS
Toyama made a minor splash in development circles with an article in Boston Review a few years ago. In it, he destroyed the idea that digital technology can ease poverty by itself. His argument was powerful then, and it seems prescient now.
This book is a radical expansion of his thesis, and it's an impressive effort. Toyama recasts his idea about technology as a Law of Amplification. As before, the Law explains why technology fails. However, in this book, Toyama goes much further. He uses the Law to offer recommendations for the right way to use technology and to stress the central importance of human change.
The chapters go like this...
Part 1
Intro - Toyama's background and set up for the book
Chap. 1 - Digital technology in education doesn't do a lot.
Chap. 2 - The Law of Amplification says that technology amplifies people.
Chap. 3 - The Law debunks common technology myths.
Chap. 4 - Other interventions are also like technology in being quick fixes.
Chap. 5 - A technocratic orthodoxy prevails in modern efforts at social change.
Part 2
Chap. 6 - To use technology well, use it to amplify positive social forces.
Chap. 7 - What really matters in social change is human development.
Chap. 8 - Human development happens through evolving aspirations.
Chap. 9 - National development happens through evolving mass aspirations.
Chap. 10 - Mentorship is the best paradigm for encouraging social change.
Conclusion - "We should see social situations less as problems to be solved and more as people and institutions to be nurtured."
As you can see from the chapters, Geek Heresy is packed with big ideas. Unlike some books that drone on about a single idea, every chapter in this one introduces a new concept that challenges common assumptions. Several times I started off disagreeing with him but then came around. This happened a lot in Chapter 3.
The book is highly readable with good anecdotes from Toyama's personal experience. The pessimism of Part 1 is countered by the inspirational content of Part 2. Portions of the book may be wonky for some readers, but Toyama keeps most of the dense scholarship in the endnotes. Especially if you like to think, this book is a pleasure to read.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Destroying the Myth: A Revelation On Technology and Intervention.
By Ajit G.
Often thought-leaders focus on technology as a panacea for the world's toughest problems. While technology offers exciting possibilities, there are enormous limitations especially in developing nations -- resources, infrastructure, poor governance, etc -- and technology alone cannot address these challenges.
Dr. Kentaro Toyama understands these issues intimately -- he holds advanced degrees in computer science and physics, was the founding assistant director of Microsoft Research India, and has melded both academics with on-the-ground experiences in examining these problems.
His enormous knowledge-base is evident in "Geek Heresy", but in a way that laymen can understand. I found Toyama easy to digest, compelling in his positions and powerful in his storytelling.
He turns back the curtain on much-lauded "successes" that have garnered headlines, but which few people have bothered to follow up and investigate the effectiveness -- he shows how "a computer for every classroom" fails to deliver, because the programs don't follow the curriculum, there is no funding and support for maintenance, and that programs like "One Laptop Per Child" simply do not translate into educational achievement, especially without teachers and staff. In essence, he dismantles the fallacy of technology as a one-stop shop for poverty intervention.
Simultaneously, he shines a light on underrepresented programs that are hitting high marks outside the usual circles and public limelight. Programs like Shanti Bhavan, which invests in long-term educational intervention and ensures that the children who graduate go onto poverty-alleviating careers.
Toyama's "Geek Heresy" is a must read for anyone interested in understanding why billions of dollars spent on technology and poverty has failed to yield proportional results, and the road we must take to break out of a pattern of failure and onto a new model of successful intervention.
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