Julian Castro Quotes

We're building what I call 'software apartheid.' We're in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can't on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines.

We must close the digital divide.

You either use the Internet or you are backward.

I don't even have my own computer.

It used to be that the only ones with access to cutting-edge technology were top government labs, big companies and the ultra-rich. It was simply too expensive for the rest of us to afford.

I proudly tell people, 'I have no computer,' so as not to be ashamed of having no computer.

One tech-related concern with religion is that it appears to be a positive feedback loop to the accelerating rich-poor gap, as the disenfranchised opt out of modernity.

The Internet can bring us much closer to the developed world.

The world's urban poor and the illiterate are going to be increasingly disadvantaged and are in danger of being left behind. The web has added a new dimension to the gap between the first world and the developing world. We have to start talking about a human right to connect.

We all know Sen. Feinstein is out of touch, but just to make it worse, by not embracing today's technology, she isn't even connected. Out of touch and disconnected.

The promise of the early web was that everyone could have a website but there was something missing. Maybe the technology wasn't ready.

CRATEL is a center with a two-fold mission - to explore technology as an expressive element and to use technology to bridge gaps between diverse groups of people.

If you take any world problem, any issue on the planet, the solution to that problem certainly includes education. In education, the roadblock is the laptop.

The majority of people who don't have Internet, don't have the Internet because they don't know why they want to use the Internet.

Technology tools such as laptops are the kind of help that we need. A program that provides laptops for all youngsters would close a gap that most of us are not aware of, or will not admit to, which is a tremendous gap in the poor communities.

As we develop and get quicker with technology in America, it's like we're downgrading if you look at the investment in education... that's the thing that worries me.

Technology produces a new division of haves and have nots.

The most dramatic effect of digital libraries will not be on us, the well-booked, but on the billions of people worldwide who are underserved by ordinary paper books.

We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places. [The Web] has ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform—a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.

Traditional hackathons are fun and focused on skill and competition, but we believe that events which focus on the positive social impact of technology engage a wider and more diverse set of participants.

The cellphone is humanity's biggest platform. If we can't use it to change education or health care, then shame on us.

Technology can be used to make people's lives easier, to reduce inequality, to facilitate inclusion, or to solve intractable global problems, but without dialogue and governance, it can be used against humanity - the choice on how we use technology is ours.

As we move into an era in which personal devices are seen as proxies for public needs, we run the risk that already-existing inequities will be further entrenched. Thus, with every big data set, we need to ask which people are excluded. Which places are less visible? What happens if you live in the shadow of big data sets?

As far as solving India's problems with technology is concerned, I think there are some wrong assumptions in making computing work at the grassroots. We need to go beyond the notion of technology being all about computers.

There's a large risk to our society if a group of people doesn't have access to technology or even the desire to get on the Net and see what opportunities are out there. Technology can be a great equalizer.