close
Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology Audiobook, by Kentaro Toyama Play Audiobook Sample

Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology Audiobook

Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology Audiobook, by Kentaro Toyama Play Audiobook Sample
FlexPass™ Price: $12.95
$9.95 for new members!
(Includes UNLIMITED podcast listening)
  • Love your audiobook or we'll exchange it
  • No credits to manage, just big savings
  • Unlimited podcast listening
Add to Cart
$9.95/m - cancel anytime - 
learn more
OR
Regular Price: $17.99 Add to Cart
Read By: Sean Pratt, Lloyd James Publisher: Tantor Audio Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 6.00 hours at 1.5x Speed 4.50 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: June 2015 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781494584580

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

14

Longest Chapter Length:

53:00 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

18:23 minutes

Average Chapter Length:

39:06 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

1

Publisher Description

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.

Download and start listening now!

“Toyama’s research reminds us that there are very few one-size-fits-all solutions. If technology is going to improve the lives of the world’s poorest, it must be grounded in a deep understanding of human behavior and an appreciation for cultural differences.”

— Bill Gates

Quotes

  • The book takes a spike-studded tire iron to the efforts by technology entrepreneurs and their enablers to reimagine how we eat, learn, heal, govern, and battle poverty.”

    — New York Times
  • “High-tech insider Kentaro Toyama’s compulsively readable manifesto will change minds about all those new technological quick-fixes for poverty.”

    — William Easterly, professor of economics, New York University
  • A white paper largely of interest to education theorists and aid specialists, with occasional asides for the Jaron Lanier/Nicholas Carr crowd.

    — Kirkus

Geek Heresy Listener Reviews

Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!

About Kentaro Toyama

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. He lives in Michigan.

About the Narrators

Hillary Huber, a Los Angeles–based voice talent with hundreds of commercials and promos under her belt, was bitten by the audiobook bug in 2005. She now records books on a regular basis and has been nominated for several Audie Awards and won numerous Earphones Awards.

Lloyd James (a.k.a. Sean Pratt) has been a working professional actor in theater, film, television, and voice-overs for more than thirty years. He has narrated over one thousand audiobooks and won numerous Earphones Awards and nominations for the Audie Award and the Voice Arts Award. He holds a BFA degree in acting from Santa Fe University, New Mexico.