Our Berkeley friends at the Cybersalon have an interesting event next Sunday the 15th of May 6:00-8:00 p.m. The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley:
Technology and the Developing World: Boon or Bane?
Silicon Valley people love to solve problems, but in the process they often create new problems…as in the Third World. While technology can level the playing field for developing countries, it often supplants and destroys the very cultures these societies have taken centuries, if not millennia, to develop. How should we introduce new technologies to developing countries so that we can keep the best of both worlds?
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 Komans, 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. And invited to join the discussion on the other side of the debate:
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 techniques 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.
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