BEYOND THE VALLEY

Introducing the Fall 2020 Westward Selection: Learn more about tech equity with Ramesh Srinivasan, PhD -- Professor of Information Studies and Director of UC Digital Cultures Lab -- through his work Beyond the Valley: How Innovators Around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow. Recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Technology Books of 2019, learn how to think critically about technology and the wide-ranging impact that rapid technological growth, monopolized by tech elites, has on so many areas of life.

The recent Cambridge Analytica and Russian misinformation scandals exemplify the imbalance of a digital world that puts profits before inclusivity and democracy. In search of a more democratic internet, Srinivasan takes us to the mountains of Oaxaca, East and West Africa, China, Scandinavia, North America, and elsewhere, visiting the "design labs" of rural, low-income, and indigenous people around the world. He talks to a range of high-profile public figures -- including Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Eric Holder, Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Lessig, and the founders of Reddit, as well as community organizers, labor leaders, and human rights activists. To make a better internet, Srinivasan says, we need a new ethic of diversity, openness, and inclusivity, empowering those now excluded from decisions about how technologies are designed, who profits from them, and who are surveilled and exploited by them.

Visit here for more information on Westward x UCLA.