Profile

About Geek Heresy:

  • Taking a Tire Iron to Techie Triumphalism
    Anand Giridharadas (June 8, 2015)
    New York Times

    "Indeed, technology has become a kinder, gentler variant of so-called trickle-down economics, in which one gives poor schoolchildren iPads and a pat on the back…"

  • Author: Tech Firms' Rhetoric Outpaces the Actual Good They DO
    All Tech Considered with Audie Cornish (Aug. 3, 2015)
    NPR

    "The more technology we have, it’s all the more important that we focus on the human forces and making sure that those are right."

For additional press and media related to Geek Heresy, see http://geekheresy.org/media.

Other appearances:

  • Wireless carriers slow streaming video content even in off-peak hours.
    Megan Cerullo (Aug. 27, 2019)
    CBS News

    "Bandwidth isn't free, and I think most of the time these companies are trying to provide customers with an experience they would be reasonably happy with, and occasionally they have to make trade offs," said Kentaro Toyama, a professor of community information at the University of Michigan. But what he called the "discrepancy" in speeds between content from certain companies is hard to explain, he said. "That is the kind of back-end deal companies are cutting now because of the lifting of net neutrality. It could be that Amazon is paying for that privilege," Toyama told CBS MoneyWatch.

  • When artificial intelligence comes for white collar jobs, will people revolt?
    (Dec. 11, 2017)
    Michigan Radio

    Kentaro Toyama, the W.K. Kellogg Associate Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, joined The Next Idea to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and his recent article in The Conversation.

  • Th battle for the soul of San Francisco
    Chris Colin (Feb. 7, 2017)
    Wired

    A revolution in artificial intelligence is transforming our lives. But how good are algorithms at making decisions about the messy, complex human world?

  • Do we need artificial intelligence?
    (Oct. 23, 2016)
    BBC World Service

    A revolution in artificial intelligence is transforming our lives. But how good are algorithms at making decisions about the messy, complex human world?

  • Love or money: The differences in founding a nonprofit and a for-profit startup
    Conner Forrest (July 13, 2015)
    TechRepublic

    According to University of Michigan professor Kentaro Toyama, for-profit companies have to prove one thing — whether or not they can make money. Scalability is desirable for for-profits startups, but for nonprofits it's a little trickier.

  • ¿Qué celular comprarle a tus hijos?
    Cintia Saporito (Jun. 26, 2015)
    Univision

    Sin embargo, es importante recordar que los niños tienen tendencias positivas y negativas, y la tecnología es capaz de amplificar ambas, nos explica Kentaro Toyama, escritor y profesor de Información Comunitaria, en la Universidad de Michigan.

  • Education tech funding soars -- but is it working in the classroom?
    Mark Koba (Apr. 28, 2015)
    Fortune

    “If you look over the shoulder of any child with a smartphone, they’re mostly not using education apps but playing Angry Birds,” said Kentaro Toyama, professor of community information at the University of Michigan and an international development researcher.

  • The limitations of technology in the classroom: digital devices and deeper learning
    Nine to Noon, with Kathryn Ryan (July 28, 2014)
    Radio New Zealand

    “Any adult who's ever looked over the shoulder of a young child playing with a smart phone has seen what they're really doing, and what they're doing is playing Angry Birds.”

  • A low-tech revolution: Are simple phones smarter than you think?
    The Stream, with Josh Rushing (Jan. 10, 2013)
    Al Jazeera

    “If the goal is to address some serious social problem, you can't just have the digital side. People will often say that technology is just 10% of the problem. That means there's this remaining 90% that is social, political, economic...”

  • Geek heretic: Technology cannot end poverty
    by Tom Paulson (May 6, 2011)
    NPR / KPLU Humanosphere

    After years of struggling with his colleagues in India to find effective technological solutions for the many different manifestations of poverty — illiteracy, poor health, lack of employment opportunities — [Toyama] decided technology was not the answer. "Technology is just an amplifier of human intent and capacity"...

  • ICT - a case of build it and they shall come?
    with Antony Funnell, produced by Andrew Davies (Feb. 17, 2011)
    ABC Future Tense

    "Over time, what I kept finding was that even in our successful projects, the impacts of the technology depended entirely on people who were either manipulating the technology from the outside or using the technology from the inside. In both cases, what we found was that you needed well-intentioned competent people... in order for the technology itself to ultimately have impact."

  • Two billion laptops? It may not be enough
    by Randoll Stross (Apr. 18, 2010)
    The New York Times

    [Mr. Toyama] has been giving talks at American universities about the "technological utopianism" that he sees in initiatives like One Laptop Per Child, Intel’s Classmate PC, and even MultiPoint. He says such initiatives rest upon a myth that "technology is the bottleneck in developing countries." Describing technological utopianism, he said, "What it comes down to is this: Everybody is looking for a shortcut."

  • Human behavior: the key to future tech developments
    by Steve Mollman (Oct. 22, 2009)
    CNN

    "Microsoft and many other companies realize that since it is, after all, people who use technology, it's critical for the company to understand how people adapt to technology," notes Kentaro Toyama, who leads the Technology for Emerging Markets research group at Microsoft Research India.

  • Microsoft reinvents its global R&D model
    by Navi Radjou (June 25, 2009)
    Harvard Business Review blog

    Undoubtedly Microsoft is pioneering the R&D 2.0 model that I discussed in my last post — an organizational model that relies on anthropologists and development economists to first decipher the socio-cultural needs of users in emerging markets like India and then use these deep insights to develop appropriate technology solutions. And it's telling that Microsoft picked India as the epicentre of its global R&D transformation.

  • Microsoft goes far afiled to study emerging markets
    by Ashlee Vance (Oct. 27, 2008)
    The New York Times

    The azolla experts are part of a nine-person team at Microsoft Research India that approaches the technology of emerging markets in unconventional ways. These computer scientists say they have the freedom to forget about PCs and software altogether as they tackle problems. Most often, they rely on a mix of sociology and empirical testing to see whether quirky ideas can make technology useful to those who have heretofore lived without it.

  • Computing at the bottom of the pyramid
    by Megha Bahree (Sept. 29, 2008)
    Forbes Magazine

    "There's a natural human draw toward fancy technology, but you can't just take a PC in its current form, dump it in a village and expect it to transform people's lives," says Kentaro Toyama, assistant managing director of M icrosoft Research India. Microsoft's research lab in India, more so than its five counterparts around the world, has become the company's locus for ideas on how to use technology to bridge the developing world's digital divide and make some money along the way.