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name: Ethan Zuckerman

graduation Year: '93

address: PO Box 669
Williamstown, MA 01267

occupation: CEO and co-founder of Geekcorps, a nonprofit dedicated to international digital divide issues.

Email address: ethan@geekcorps.org

I haven't chosen to pursue philosophy on a graduate level - in fact, I was led astray from grad school (in the arts) years ago and haven't looked back. I got seduced into the wild world of the Internet and have largely thought of my philosophy education only when folks ask me if I've got a degree in computer science, and I laugh and tell them I'm a recovering philosopher.

On further reflection, I think my experiences with philosophy at Williams have had at least two identifiable effects on my professional life. Most of my work in the Internet field has been under the heading of "Research and Development" (which I headed for tripod.com). The chief problem in R&D is problem identification. I figured out, at some point, that most of the interesting problems in software R&D are problems that interested me as a philosophy student: How come language is so easy for children to learn and so hard to teach to computers? What do we mean by "consciousness" anyway, and how important is it really? What would it mean for a piece of software to be intelligent? To be alive? I'm not convinced that Wittgenstein's especially useful when you're writing algorithms to group text by subject matter, but it interests and excites me that I've gotten to work on problems that intersect with the problems that fascinated me as an undergraduate.

Second, I'm not sure anyone that who majors in philosophy doesn't have a massive overabundance of self-confidence. It requires a certain amount of hubris to decide that at 18, 20, 22, you have something meaningful to add to a debate about the nature of language, thought, existence, morality or God. This tendency to think big isn't a bad thing, though, as you move on in life. My current project, Geekcorps, is a ludicriously big idea - essentially, we're trying to build a digital-age Peace Corps and bridge the digital divide, worldwide. I don't think it would be nearly as interesting an idea or project if it were smaller - wiring one town or one country, for instance. I think the reassurance we all got from studying philosophy at Williams - that it's allowable and worthwhile to think really, really big - is an important and lasting factor in my thought and action.