Geek Heresy (63 page)

Telecenters,
104–108
,
123
,
125
,
234(n24)
.
See also
Internet cafés

Television,
7–8
,
47
,
134
,
230(n13)
,
253(n18)

Texting,
25
,
56
,
69
,
235(n33)

Theories of technology and society.
See
Technology and society

Things Fall Apart
(Achebe),
62–63

Thompson, John B.,
75–76

Thought experiments

      
failing company,
31

      
future learning machine,
54

      
Law of Amplification,
48–49

      
technology prediction,
52–53

      
Singer’s drowning child and variation,
212–213

      
wealth versus wisdom,
170–171

Toms Shoes,
84–87
,
242(nn28
,
29
,
30)

Transactional relationships, mentorship versus,
203–204

Transparency, governmental,
31–32
.
See also
Democracy

Tuggun, Isaac,
127–132
,
215

Tunisia: Arab Spring,
32–33
,
36–37
,
62

Tunstall, Tricia,
270(n2)
,
273(n3)

Turkle, Sherry,
40

Twenge, Jean,
262(n33)

Twitter,
35–36
,
51
.
See also
Social media

UNICEF,
193–194

Unilever Corporation,
83

Unintended consequences,
23
,
55–56
,
231(n27)

United States

      
American Revolution,
35
,
232(n45)

      
compassionate class,
189

      
creative class,
186

      
credit and debt,
60–61

      
digital divide,
9–10
,
47–49

      
educational technology,
x
,
9–14
,
114–121

      
electricity usage,
230(n16)

      
entrepreneurial spirit,
177–178

      
inequality,
x–xi
,
47–49
,
116–118

      
Internet censorship and spying,
52

      
modernization,
266–267(n11)

      
racial and gender equality,
63–64

      
role model for developing countries,
215–216

      
women’s status,
178

United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
86
,
272(n12)

Universal suffrage,
63

Untouchables, India’s,
64

Urban migration,
268(n21)

Uruguay: One Laptop Per Child,
8

Usury,
58
.
See also
Microcredit

Utilitarianism,
88

Utopians, technological,
20–22

      
Arab Spring as Facebook revolution,
33

      
characteristics and views,
21–22

      
faith in future technologies,
21–22

      
indiscriminate dissemination of technology,
108–109

      
skeptics and,
23–24
,
230(n17)

      
technology as savior,
56
,
216–218
,
234(n17)

      
technology’s effect on personal relationships,
46

      
See also
Technology and society

Vaccines

      
fear of,
68
,
238(n36)

      
heart, mind, and will of participants,
111–112

      
laptops as,
64
,
73
,
238(n26)

      
measles,
65
,
212

      
packaged interventions,
64–65

      
philanthropic role in,
212

      
polio eradication,
238(n28)

Value neutrality and value engagement,
93

Van Alstyne, Marshall,
47

Veeraraghavan, Rajesh,
104–106
,
109
,
112–113

Venal corruption,
266(n10)
.
See also
Corruption

Venezuela: El Sistema music program,
193–194
,
207–208
,
270(n2)
,
273(n23)

Video-based instruction.
See
Digital Green

Video games

      
Chinese Internet censorship,
50

      
cognitive skills developed by,
227(n10)

      
educational gains from,
228(n20)

      
educational software competing with,
114–115
,
247–248(n20)

      
Hole-in-the-Wall project,
12

      
Internet cafés,
246–247(n8)

      
nurturing children,
232(n34)

      
See also
Prensky, Marc
;
McGonigal, Jane

Video teleconferencing,
105
,
109–110

Village Health Works,
207

Virtue ethics,
213–214
,
274–275(n4)

Voting,
62–64
,
170

Voting rights,
63

Voucher programs,
94

Wages and salaries

      
gender-based wage gap,
63–64
,
238(n25)

      
India’s NREGA guaranteeing income,
112–114

      
See also
Employment

Walkman, Sony,
38–40
,
233(n1)

Walmart,
42–43

Warschauer, Mark,
9
,
15
,
117
,
228(n15)

Weber, Max,
176
,
266(n7)

Welzel, Christian,
181
,
187–188

Willpower.
See
Self-control

Wilson, E. O.,
277(n17)

Wireless,
x
.
See also
Mobile phones
.

Wireless access: technology strategy for schools,
120

Wisdom,
133–136
.
See also
Heart, mind, and will
;
Intrinsic growth
.

Women and girls

      
computer literacy training in India,
17–20

      
Digital Green,
195–196

      
education’s benefits to,
142–144

      
Ghana’s Soronko education programs,
152

      
global change in women’s status,
178–179
,
267(n16)

      
India’s labor market,
258(n54)

      
Kelsa+ project for adults,
123–124

      
liberation of,
267(n15)

      
literacy and computer literacy,
27–28

      
mobile phones and Indian women,
28

      
self-actualization and individual aspirations,
188–191

      
See also
Inequality

Work ethic,
176
.
See also
Self-control

World Bank,
193–194
,
272(n14)

World Health Organization (WHO),
65

World Summit on the Information Society,
5

World Values Survey,
97
,
179–180
,
190
,
267(n17)
,
267–268(n18)
,
268(n19)

Xenophon,
209

Yeddyurappa, B.S.,
237(n20)

Your ordinary American agency (YOAA),
70

Youth development, mentorship in,
272(n16)

Yunus, Muhammad,
58–59
,
66–68
,
71–72
,
84

Zinman, Jonathan,
59–60

Zuckerberg, Mark,
33
.
See also
Facebook

Kentaro Toyama
is W. K. Kellogg Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information and a Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Until 2009, he was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he cofounded in 2005, and where he researched how the world’s poorer communities interact with electronic technology and invented new ways for technology to support their socioeconomic development. He lives in Ann Arbor.

PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.

I. F. S
TONE
, proprietor of
I. F. Stone’s Weekly
, combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published
The Trial of Socrates
, which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.

B
ENJAMIN
C. B
RADLEE
was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of
The Washington Post
. It was Ben who gave the
Post
the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.