09
May
2005
|
13:26 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Tech in the Developing World: Boon or Bane?


bookmob-sm.jpg

I spent six weeks in the fall of '03 and a few more weeks last summer in Uganda working on a project called the Uganda Digital Bookmobile, in which a van loaded with office technology visited rural schools and printed out public domain books. (It was a spinoff of the Internet Archive's supercool Internet Bookmobile project.)


I'll be talking about it at the next Berkeley Cybersalon, organized by Jeff Ubois. The topic of the talk is "Technology and the Developing World: Boon or Bane?" Lee Felsenstein, inventor of the first portable computer, and Eric Brewer, cofounder of Inktomi, will also be on the panel.


It will take place May 15, 6-8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley. Here's a full description:


Silicon Valley people love to solve problems, but in the process they
often create new ones: it’s a cliché, but when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. While information technology can solve some problems in developing countries – connecting people there with their relatives here, for example – it often supplants and destroys the very cultures these societies have taken centuries, if not millennia, to develop. When is information technology actually helpful in developing countries? Join us for an interactive panel-audience discussion on this topic.

Invited panelists include:

• Lee Felsenstein, who built the first portable computer, the Osborne, and has tried to port the Internet to the jungles of Laos using the pedal power of the bicycle.

• Eric Brewer, cofounder of spider search engine Inktomi and computer science professor at UC Berkeley, who just led a delegation of open source computing advocates to India.

• Richard Koman, who set up an Internet Bookmobile Project in Uganda to download and publish books on the spot, and

• Jessica Mitchell, a Geekcorps technology volunteer who is working with Ghana’s ISPs.

• Claudia Carr, UCB associate professor in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, who has firsthand experience of the way modern technology destroys ancient cultures.

• Iain Boal, social historian of science and technics at UCB’s

Institute of International Studies, edited a book called “Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information,” which sheds some insights on the damage caused by high-tech, for export or not.


Come join us for an engaging discussion in which everyone is encouraged to participate. $10 gets you drinks and something to whet your appetite.


The Hillside Club is half a mile from the Berkeley BART station, and

coming south from Highway 80, take the University Ave. exit, go under

the freeway along the frontage road and make a right at the 4RENT sign, which is Cedar St. Go up two miles and park. If you need a ride, contact whoisylvia@aol.com.