Opening Session
with Nicholas Carr
Thursday, October 27, 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Main Auditorium
A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas Carr writes and speaks on technology, business, and culture. His intriguing 2003 Harvard Business Review article “IT Doesn’t Matter,” was an instant sensation, setting the stage for the global debate on the strategic value of information technology in business. His 2004 book, “Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage,” published by Harvard Business School Press, was a bestseller and kept the worldwide business community discussing the role of computers and IT in business. Already a business bestseller, his book, “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google,” examines the future of computing and its implications for business and society. The Wall Street Journal says The Big Switch is “destined to influence CEOs and the boards and investors that support them as companies grapple with the constant change of the digital age.”
A prolific and nimble thought leader, Carr has written more than a dozen articles and interviews for Harvard Business Review and writes regularly for the Financial Times, Strategy & Business and The Guardian. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, Wired, Business 2.0, Boston Globe, Industry Standard, The Banker, Director, BusinessWeek Online as well as in his popular blog, Rough Type. He also edited The Digital Enterprise, a book of HBR writings on the Internet. Nick’s newest book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” examines the intellectual and social consequences of the Internet. It has received unprecedented international acclaim and has been reviewed in all major news publications.
Carr has served as a commentator on CNBC, CNN, and other networks and has been a featured speaker worldwide at industry, educational, and government forums. In Spring 2008 CIO Insight named Carr’s Does IT Matter? one of the all-time “Top 15 Most Groundbreaking Management Books” and Ziff Davis included him as one of only a handful of IT management thought leaders on their “100 Most Influential People in IT” list. In 2007 eWeek named him one of the 100 most influential people in IT and in 2005, Optimize magazine named Carr one of the leading thinkers on information technology. Earlier in his career, Carr was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English literature, from Harvard University.
Closing Session
with Mimi Ito
Saturday, October 29, 2:30pm – 4:00pm
Main Auditorium
Mimi Ito is an international expert on how people use mobile technologies and new digital media in their everyday lives. A cultural anthropologist of technology use, she also is a leading authority on how social network technologies are shaping society.
Dr. Ito has been named the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning. Created in 2009 from an endowment fund originally established by the MacArthur Foundation at the University of California, Berkeley, the digital media and learning initiative aims to determine how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.
Dr. Ito co-led the Digital Youth Project, a landmark study of the ways youth use new media funded by the MacArthur Foundation, and is coauthor of the book based on the study, “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.” She recently published, “Engineering Play” and co-edited “Personal, Portable, Pedestrian” and also co-edited the book series “Technologies of the Imagination.”
Dr. Ito has researched a wide range of other digitally augmented social practices, including online gaming and social communities, the production and consumption of children’s software, and children’s play with new media. She also specializes in amateur culture production, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) media cultures, and peer-to-peer learning.
