Session 5

Information Technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. It is so integral to our way of living that we take for granted what it has done for us. I recently bought myself the new iPhone and have been using it for fun and games. But what the class made me realize was that a technology like the iPhone could actually make it possible for anyone, anywhere to get themselves education and information. Till now I had only focused on IT that changed how I did things. But after this I understand that ICT can be a driver of change, change which can actually help people raise their quality of life.

The basic themes discussed in class were what ICT is, what are its implications and possible uses for the future. Also we discussed its dangers and other problems connected to it. We also mentioned possible application it might have in dealing with social problems such as poverty and unemployment.

One part that I really enjoyed was the one on Cloud Computing. The video was very good and I really grasped the concept well because of it.

A thought that came to me was that the root cause of most of these problems is a lack of information. Unemployment is partially caused by lack of knowledge of opportunities. Poverty can be caused by lack of knowledge of how to use resources. Illiteracy is caused by lack of teachers and infrastructure. All of these problems can be solved through the proliferation of information technology. I mentioned the MIT Media Lab's one hundred dollar laptop, which could be a tool for solving these problems.

Another thought I had is related to the story of the Tower of Babel. Our world for a lot of recorded human history has been divided by culture, geography and language. However with the advent of the Internet we are again reverting to what we were before the Tower of Babel. We are no longer divided by geography, no longer split asunder by language. We speak the language of 1's and 0's, experience each other's lives through blogs and social networking and live the same culture through sites like 4chan, Facebook, youtube etc.

I would rate the lecture 9/10 for some very interesting presentations and good insights into how IT works.