1 post tagged “education”
As a tech geek, you have a certain bond with fellow tech geeks. You show each other your gadgets, gawk over the newest ones and talk about the foreseeable gadget future. And so I didn't feel at all out of place when C woke me from my deep sleep in the Caribbean heat at 7am so that I can function as backup tech geek (and diligent stapler guy) at her office's festivities on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Happy International Day for the Eradication of Poverty!!
I met with a fellow former Yorkie and we yakked about the newest smart-phones, Enterprise Server, 3G and how damn ugly RIM's Blackberry is. We were in the back browsing gsmarena.com as some of the local school children were discussing the UNDP's Millennium Goals, and how the reduction of poverty "enabled" the other goals' success. This is not to say that we weren't interested; there was no sound being piped into the actual sound box in the back of the conference room, so we had to suffice with C's miming "Can you load NetAid's Millennium Goal quiz, and throw the splash page on the screen while you're doing that?". They had to suffice with us miming: "?"
Nonetheless, while we were discussing the idiosyncrasies of various technologies, at root of all of these kinds of discussions are the various inroads (or, to borrow a term from gaming, "mechanics") that our products have on our lives, our relationships with others and our societies. Gone are the grand pronunciations of technocrats proclaiming that technological prowess determines progress. Gone are the equally grand denunciations that technology undermines social relationships, structures and processes. What's left are ideas, dialogue and people helping people, and using whatever tools we have to facilitate that process, salubrious or otherwise. Today, it was engaging middle-class kids into envisioning a healthier, and hence, wealthier future for everybody. All this is held up by the belief that ideas of such a society can eradicate poverty and influence progress, technological or otherwise. And herein lies the paradox. In The Ingenuity Gap, Thomas Homer-Dixon writes that though ideas are what drives economic progress, you can't educate a child unable to focus due to poor nutrition and poverty. So why talk with those who don't suffer from it? Because it it will take time, and what is happening now determines what happens next.
And so, though we couldn't hear what the kids were discussing in the conference room, we knew what to do, how to help, and what was (and is) at stake.
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Today was a good day. C's office mates were genuine and very welcoming. Fading are the lingering fears that I will always be an outsider, won't find work, and that whatever altruistic sentiments and technical skills I possess will atrophy.
I met with a fellow former Yorkie and we yakked about the newest smart-phones, Enterprise Server, 3G and how damn ugly RIM's Blackberry is. We were in the back browsing gsmarena.com as some of the local school children were discussing the UNDP's Millennium Goals, and how the reduction of poverty "enabled" the other goals' success. This is not to say that we weren't interested; there was no sound being piped into the actual sound box in the back of the conference room, so we had to suffice with C's miming "Can you load NetAid's Millennium Goal quiz, and throw the splash page on the screen while you're doing that?". They had to suffice with us miming: "?"
And so, though we couldn't hear what the kids were discussing in the conference room, we knew what to do, how to help, and what was (and is) at stake.
----
Today was a good day. C's office mates were genuine and very welcoming. Fading are the lingering fears that I will always be an outsider, won't find work, and that whatever altruistic sentiments and technical skills I possess will atrophy.
