9–11, Technology, and the Real Challenge We Face

I serve as President and CEO of The Tech Interactive, a technology-focused interactive learning institution in San Jose, CA. We see about 500,000 visitors a year on site and train teachers that work with nearly 30,000 students a day. This is what I said to our full board of directors earlier today, 9–11–19.

On this day, 18 years ago, America woke up to the stunning realization of its own vulnerability. We were exposed — an easy target for people who were motivated by hatred and fear and who were also equipped with technologies that could wreak widespread destruction anywhere, anytime.

It had been predicted. I remember many discussions during my time at Harvard’s Kennedy School about the likelihood that an attack could happen in America using the technologies we created. It was 1997, and we were worried then about a “dirty bomb” — a nuclear bomb that could be carried in a car or even a case — that might be detonated in a crowded street in New York. Samuel Huntington had just published his book The Clash of Civilizations, and everyone was debating its merits and shortcomings and worldview. People might not have agreed, but they were worried. Rightly so.

The 9–11 attacks can be understood as an example of the power of hate and the vulnerability of free societies. But they can also be understood as a story about technology: about its power to be used for good or evil. They can be read as cautionary tales about how our technologies are really not ethically neutral because they are always used by people who are not ethically neutral.

The Tech can play a meaningful role in speaking into the realities made visible by the 9–11 attacks. Through our focus on using tech for global good, we can get to the heart of the matter — the root choice that lies at the base of everything. A powerful idea lies at the heart of The Tech. It is the basic idea that there is something good and worthy and creative and innovative in everyone. It is our job to inspire people not only to tap into their creative problem-solving power, but to do so for the well-being of their neighbors and their planet.

This is our greatest challenge. To inspire people to care about each other and our planet is much more difficult than to awe them with the power of technology. But it is the task that the world needs us to do. I hope The Tech is a place where people are inspired to do more than what is possible, but also what is right and good and beautiful. I hope The Tech is a place where people are inspired to see how they are connected to every person and everything on this planet we share. I hope The Tech is a place where people are inspired to make their lives count for goodness.

If we do these things, it will be our best response to the attacks that happened 18 years ago today.