Eye Openers

Something really jumped out at me during this second session. The Millennium Development Goals surprised me with the very magnitude of what they were trying to achieve. One of the important points we have to take away from this course is how technology can help us to change the world and make it a better place. Items such as the MIT Media Lab's 100 dollar laptop have the ability to make the Millennium Development Goals a reality. We see how this marvel of modern technology can actually make us realize a better tomorrow.

The things we discussed in class such as the dominance of certain countries and companies due to their technological superiority really brought to the fore why certain organisations are leaders in their respective fields. Also the rising and falling star framework put into perspective the socio economic changes of the past few years. We can understand very easily the future dominance of the South East Asian region in the coming years by looking through this framework.

I really enjoyed the presentations especially the ones about the American hegemony and Ford's assembly line. I think the second one showed how technology can play a part in world politics while the second one showed us how one organisation can simply change the way that everyone does things.

Key take away points would be the MDG's and how we can work to solve them. Also I'll take away the the realization of how big a role technology can play at both the macro and the micro level, of how it can change a daughter's life as Dora talked about in her presentation and of how it can change the way that nations progress as talked about in the first presentation. In fact this is an issue for further discussion.

I would rate the session 9 because of the brilliant presentations and eye opening revelations.

Of Changing Times

As a fan of science fiction, I have read a lot about how technology changes the way people look at things around them. I have also read many examples of how lost the human race will be without the many machines that proliferate our society. Thus, I entered the Technology and World Change class with many expectations and much excitement. And I found something that showed me that I never really knew what all those authors were trying to say.

First we saw a video that discussed the major state of flux that our planet is in. Then we had introductions all round, which was a nice touch. After that, we saw the starting of Guns, Germs and Steel which is basically a text/documentary which tries to find the root cause of major socio economics imbalances that exist today. However we did not remain soon on this topic and moved on to the relationship between creativity, invention and innovation. We also discussed the definition of technology and innovation in order to gain a more intuitive understanding of both.

An interesting idea that I had during this class was how technology could be something more than an advance from status quo. Technology as we discussed is supposed to make the lives of people better. Therefore technology development in places such as Asia and Africa could explore the return of labor intensive products which would better suit these places. Food for thought.

The key ideas from this class are -

1. TWC is a good class.

2. Our understanding of what technology needs to change.

As this for the first class, I don't really think we missed anything. We got a pretty good idea of what the prof expects from us and what the course is gonna be like. Also we know what we should expect from ourselves. Plus we are beginning to comprehend the subtle relationships between technology and its cousins - creativity, innovation etc.

I'd rate the session about a 9.

Also I'd like to thank the prof and the TA. I won't say this will be a breeze. It'll be pretty tough. But it should be a lot of fun thanks to them.