about global development.
I’m immensely grateful to Clive Priddle at PublicAffairs and Jim Levine at Levine Greenberg Roston Literary Agency for seeing potential in my book andencouraging my aspirations. Through extensive revisions, Clive and his colleague Maria Goldverg made insightful recommendations and saved me from a glut of word count and self-indulgence. I’d also like to thank Melissa Raymond and Rachel King for production oversight, Kathy Streckfus for painstaking copyediting, Pete Garceau and Cynthia Young for book design, Catherine Bowman for indexing, Lori Lewis for proofreading, and Lindsay Fradkoff, Jaime Leifer, and Nicole Counts for marketing and publicty.
Any excesses that remain are due to my own stubbornness. I began this book with what I learned through research and personal experience, but as I pulled on the thread of the technological problems immediately in front of me, I found that it led me through a larger labyrinth that couldn’t be understood in fragments. My earnest hope is that the whole, if fuzzy or flawed in the details, nevertheless presents an overall vision that is both coherent and compelling. Or at least thought-provoking.
Above all, I thank my wife, Jasmit Kaur, whose unfailing support – and willingness to read draft after draft after draft – brought out the best in me as I wrote this book.
Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information and a Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Until 2009, he was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he cofounded in 2005, and where he researched how the world’s poorer communities interact with electronic technology and invented new ways for technology to support their socioeconomic development. He lives in Ann Arbor.
PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.
I. F. S TONE , proprietor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly , combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published The Trial of Socrates , which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.
B ENJAMIN C. B RADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of The Washington Post . It was Ben who gave the Post the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.
R OBERT L. B ERNSTEIN , the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation’s premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.
• • •
For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by The Washington Post as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.
Peter Osnos, Founder and Editor-at-Large
I’m immensely grateful to Clive Priddle at PublicAffairs and Jim Levine at Levine Greenberg Roston Literary Agency for seeing potential in my book andencouraging my aspirations. Through extensive revisions, Clive and his colleague Maria Goldverg made insightful recommendations and saved me from a glut of word count and self-indulgence. I’d also like to thank Melissa Raymond and Rachel King for production oversight, Kathy Streckfus for painstaking copyediting, Pete Garceau and Cynthia Young for book design, Catherine Bowman for indexing, Lori Lewis for proofreading, and Lindsay Fradkoff, Jaime Leifer, and Nicole Counts for marketing and publicty.
Any excesses that remain are due to my own stubbornness. I began this book with what I learned through research and personal experience, but as I pulled on the thread of the technological problems immediately in front of me, I found that it led me through a larger labyrinth that couldn’t be understood in fragments. My earnest hope is that the whole, if fuzzy or flawed in the details, nevertheless presents an overall vision that is both coherent and compelling. Or at least thought-provoking.
Above all, I thank my wife, Jasmit Kaur, whose unfailing support – and willingness to read draft after draft after draft – brought out the best in me as I wrote this book.
Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Associate Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information and a Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Until 2009, he was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he cofounded in 2005, and where he researched how the world’s poorer communities interact with electronic technology and invented new ways for technology to support their socioeconomic development. He lives in Ann Arbor.
PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.
I. F. S TONE , proprietor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly , combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published The Trial of Socrates , which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.
B ENJAMIN C. B RADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of The Washington Post . It was Ben who gave the Post the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.
R OBERT L. B ERNSTEIN , the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation’s premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.
• • •
For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by The Washington Post as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.
Peter Osnos, Founder and Editor-at-Large
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