In this provocative talk, Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA studying technology’s impact on our lives, examines how a few tech companies have built products that now influence the lives of billions of people around the globe.
“If you look at the actual constitution of the material Internet, it reflects the asymmetries across the world. And it reflects the geopolitical, political and economic relationships of power and privilege.”
In response to this, people from all over the world are now taking taking a bottom-up approach to digital technology. “They’re taking technologies and reimagining them according to their constraints”, he said, giving examples of people who are employing alternative models of digital innovation. “They’re being resourceful by doing more with less. They’re taking things that are designed to die, and giving them new life.”
Srinivasan expressed optimism that we can still create an Internet that lifts everybody up. “To do so, we have to think in terms that are beyond the Valley and look at the realities that are happening in the world right here and right now, moving forward,” he said.
