Called "one of the top ten brains of the digital future," author Steven Johnson will be the speaker for an Akron Roundtable “xtra luncheon” on Tuesday, Jan. 27, beginning at noon at Quaker Station, 135 S. Broadway. The luncheon is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The University of Akron. Tickets are $20. Reservations may be made on the Akron Roundtable website.
Johnson, honored with that high praise by Prospect magazine, is the host of the PBS six-part series: “How We Got To Now.” The series accompanies Johnson’s latest book, the best-selling “How We Got To Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World.”
From clean water to air conditioning to even standardized time, Johnson takes his readers and viewers through the twists and turns of inspiration and serendipity that made these and many other innovations possible. He explores the why and how ideas happen, and the unintended results that sometimes occur.
Unheralded technology
“What we wanted to have in the book, and each episode is the same way, is to have something that we don’t think about anymore as technology or as innovation that we’re so used to it that that it is just part of our everyday lives,” explained Johnson in an Oct. 4, 2014, interview with “CBS This Morning.” “So, a glass of clean water for instance, or air conditioning, we don’t think of that as technology anymore, but there is a whole back history of ingenuity and craziness that led to that innovation being part of our lives.”
Johnson, who earned degrees at Brown and Columbia universities, is the author of nine books in all, including “Where Good Ideas Come From,” “The Invention of Air” and “The Ghost Map.”
Following up on “How We Got To Now,” Johnson’s latest project is How We Get To Next. The website is a project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Knight Foundation, that collects and develops news and ideas the future being created around us.
See interviews with Johnson on:
IN BRIEF
WHO: Author Steve Johnson
WHEN: Johnson will speak at the Akron Roundtable at noon, Tuesday, Jan. 27
WHERE: Quaker Station, 135 S. Broadway
TICKETS: $20, available on the Akron Roundtable website
SPONSORS: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University