Hi everyone ROOM CHANGE FINAL REMINDER! Kentaro will be giving a talk at the Change seminar tomorrow in CSE 403 (not the usual room 203). Details below. Thanks Nicki ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nicola Dell <nixdell@cs.washington.edu> Date: Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:54 PM Subject: Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development in CSE 403 To: change@change.washington.edu *Please note the room change for this Thursdays talk. We will meet in the Allen Center CSE 403 instead of 203. * This Thursday at Change we will be hosting a talk by Kentaro Toyama ( www.kentarotoyama.org). Kentaro is a visiting researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. For nearly two years, Kentaro has been giving versions of a talk titled “10 Myths of Information and Communication Technologies for Development” (available as slides<http://www.kentarotoyama.org/talks/2010%2006%2023%20Ten%20Myths%20of%20ICT4D%20-%20Toyama.ppt> , video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_mTwm5m8DM>, blog posts<http://ict4djester.org/blog/?cat=4> , magazine article <http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.6/ndf_technology.php>, or research paper <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1940772>). The core claim is that technology’s impact is multiplicative, not additive, with respect to human intent and capacity. Responses have ranged from “The way Kentaro [presents] it, we should conclude that nobody can do anything” to “I was convinced, even as my assumptions were being turned around 180 degrees.” All of the feedback has been extremely helpful, and in this talk Kentaro will discuss how it has deepened his own understanding of the topic, sharpened the exposition, uncovered additional myths, and pushed him towards more constructive recommendations. Kentaro is currently working on a book arguing that increasing human wisdom should be the primary focus of international development activities. Until 2009, Kentaro was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he co-founded in 2005. At MSR India, he started the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, which conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how the world's poorest communities interact with electronic technology and to invent new ways for technology to support their socio-economic development. Prior to his time in India, Kentaro did computer vision research at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Yale with a PhD in Computer Science and from Harvard with a bachelors degree in Physics. Please join us for sandwiches, and to hear Kentaro's reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development. *What:* Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development *When:* Thursday, Oct 20th at noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, *Room* *403*