ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like the ship of Theseus, the first draft of this book was replaced piece by piece, to the point that the final manuscript contains little of the initial text. I resisted many of the revisions, but looking back, I see how necessary they were, and for that I owe thanks to the many people who provided me with opportunity, advice, and critique.
AnnaLee Saxenian at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and Henry Tirri of Nokia Research gave me the priceless gift of one year’s time and freedom to research and write the first draft. Its essence and argument have been preserved despite successive revisions.
Scott Stossel, magazine editor of The Atlantic , was generous to a fault in sharing feedback, expertise, contacts, and opportunities with me. This book would not have been published without him.
Several kind people in the publishing industry helped me along the way with no ultimate benefit to themselves. Among them, Howard Yoon and Melanie Tortoroli each gave precious input. A few agents and editors also offered thoughtful feedback, including Giles Anderson, Max Brockman, Joseph Calamia, Amy Caldwell, Laurie Harting, Jeff Kehoe, Rafe Sagalyn, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, Anna Sproul-Latimer, Andrew Stuart, and Elizabeth Wales. Authors Ben Mezrich and Evgeny Morozov provided timely advice. Thank you.
I’m also grateful to Patrick Newell for inviting me to speak at the beautifully organized TEDxTokyo in 2010 ( http://j.mp/ktTEDxTokyo ).
The ideas in this book were fostered through close engagements with a number of organizations. I thank P. Anandan, Dan Ling, Rick Rashid, and Craig Mundie for the incredible opportunity to cofound Microsoft Research India, and to my colleagues in the Technology for Emerging Markets group for all of our research adventures – Ed Cutrell, Jonathan Donner, Rikin Gandhi, David Hutchful, Paul Javid, Indrani Medhi, Saurabh Panjwani, Udai Singh Pawar, Archana Prasad, Nimmi Rangaswamy, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, Bill Thies, Rajesh Veeraraghavan, and Randy Wang. Teaching at Ashesi University was the chance of alifetime, and it was Patrick Awuah, Nina Marini, and the Ashesi Class of 2005 who made that possible. The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi was kind to induct me as a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and I have enjoyed speaking with other fellows. David Edelstein, Caroline Figueres, Rikin Gandhi, Bookda Gheisar, Dean Karlan, Deo Niyizonkiza, Bhagya Rangachar, and Cliff Schmidt each invited me to join their respective nonprofits – Grameen Foundation, IICD, Digital Green, Global Washington, Innovations for Poverty Action, Village Health Works, CLT, and Literacy Bridge – as board member or adviser, and I’ve learned a lot from an insider’s view of their work.
Some sections rely on interviews with people who graciously shared their time: Regina Agyare, Patrick Awuah, Roy Baumeister, Abdul Mannan Choudhury, Jayshree Diggi, Ann Downer, Julia Driver, Esther Duflo, David Ellerman, Abraham George, Anirban Ghose, Chris Howard, Ron Inglehart, Deep Joshi, Neelima Khetan, Gary King, Kavitha L., Lalitha Law, Jorge Perez-Luna, A. V. M. Sahni, Barry Schwartz, Priyanka Singh, Tara Sreenivasa, Vera te Velde, Isaac Tuggun, and Mark Warschauer. I hope I’ve accurately represented their views, even where we might disagree.
The survey of Kenyan aspirations mentioned in Chapter 8 was conducted by Victor Rateng at Synovate. Thanks also to Shikoh Gitau and Joel Lehmann for help with the survey, and especially to Nathalia Rodriguez Vega for analysis.
Many people critiqued my drafts. A big “thank you” to all! Bill Thies and Suze Woolf went beyond anything I could have hoped for by providing meaningful notes on every chapter. Bill also helped me clarify a few tricky passages in detail. I’m also indebted to the following people for their in-depth critique of a few chapters: Nana Boateng,
Like the ship of Theseus, the first draft of this book was replaced piece by piece, to the point that the final manuscript contains little of the initial text. I resisted many of the revisions, but looking back, I see how necessary they were, and for that I owe thanks to the many people who provided me with opportunity, advice, and critique.
AnnaLee Saxenian at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and Henry Tirri of Nokia Research gave me the priceless gift of one year’s time and freedom to research and write the first draft. Its essence and argument have been preserved despite successive revisions.
Scott Stossel, magazine editor of The Atlantic , was generous to a fault in sharing feedback, expertise, contacts, and opportunities with me. This book would not have been published without him.
Several kind people in the publishing industry helped me along the way with no ultimate benefit to themselves. Among them, Howard Yoon and Melanie Tortoroli each gave precious input. A few agents and editors also offered thoughtful feedback, including Giles Anderson, Max Brockman, Joseph Calamia, Amy Caldwell, Laurie Harting, Jeff Kehoe, Rafe Sagalyn, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, Anna Sproul-Latimer, Andrew Stuart, and Elizabeth Wales. Authors Ben Mezrich and Evgeny Morozov provided timely advice. Thank you.
I’m also grateful to Patrick Newell for inviting me to speak at the beautifully organized TEDxTokyo in 2010 ( http://j.mp/ktTEDxTokyo ).
The ideas in this book were fostered through close engagements with a number of organizations. I thank P. Anandan, Dan Ling, Rick Rashid, and Craig Mundie for the incredible opportunity to cofound Microsoft Research India, and to my colleagues in the Technology for Emerging Markets group for all of our research adventures – Ed Cutrell, Jonathan Donner, Rikin Gandhi, David Hutchful, Paul Javid, Indrani Medhi, Saurabh Panjwani, Udai Singh Pawar, Archana Prasad, Nimmi Rangaswamy, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, Bill Thies, Rajesh Veeraraghavan, and Randy Wang. Teaching at Ashesi University was the chance of alifetime, and it was Patrick Awuah, Nina Marini, and the Ashesi Class of 2005 who made that possible. The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi was kind to induct me as a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and I have enjoyed speaking with other fellows. David Edelstein, Caroline Figueres, Rikin Gandhi, Bookda Gheisar, Dean Karlan, Deo Niyizonkiza, Bhagya Rangachar, and Cliff Schmidt each invited me to join their respective nonprofits – Grameen Foundation, IICD, Digital Green, Global Washington, Innovations for Poverty Action, Village Health Works, CLT, and Literacy Bridge – as board member or adviser, and I’ve learned a lot from an insider’s view of their work.
Some sections rely on interviews with people who graciously shared their time: Regina Agyare, Patrick Awuah, Roy Baumeister, Abdul Mannan Choudhury, Jayshree Diggi, Ann Downer, Julia Driver, Esther Duflo, David Ellerman, Abraham George, Anirban Ghose, Chris Howard, Ron Inglehart, Deep Joshi, Neelima Khetan, Gary King, Kavitha L., Lalitha Law, Jorge Perez-Luna, A. V. M. Sahni, Barry Schwartz, Priyanka Singh, Tara Sreenivasa, Vera te Velde, Isaac Tuggun, and Mark Warschauer. I hope I’ve accurately represented their views, even where we might disagree.
The survey of Kenyan aspirations mentioned in Chapter 8 was conducted by Victor Rateng at Synovate. Thanks also to Shikoh Gitau and Joel Lehmann for help with the survey, and especially to Nathalia Rodriguez Vega for analysis.
Many people critiqued my drafts. A big “thank you” to all! Bill Thies and Suze Woolf went beyond anything I could have hoped for by providing meaningful notes on every chapter. Bill also helped me clarify a few tricky passages in detail. I’m also indebted to the following people for their in-depth critique of a few chapters: Nana Boateng,
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