Kyra Maya Phillips

Alexa Clay

A book that argues that lessons in creativity, innovation, salesmanship, and entrepreneurship can come from surprising places: pirates, bootleggers, counterfeiters, hustlers, and others living and working on the margins of business and society. Who are the greatest innovators in the world? You're probably thinking Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford. The usual suspects. This book isn't about them. It's about people you've never heard of. It's about people who are just as innovative, entrepreneurial, and visionary as the Jobses, Edisons, and Fords of the world. They’re in the crowded streets of Shenzhen, the prisons of Somalia, the flooded coastal towns of Thailand. They are pirates, computer hackers, pranksters, and former gang leaders. Across the globe, diverse innovators operating in the black, grey, and informal economies are developing solutions to a myriad of challenges. Far from being "deviant entrepreneurs" that pose threats to our social and economic stability, these innovators display remarkable ingenuity, pioneering original methods and practices that we can learn from and apply to move formal markets. This book investigates the stories of underground innovation that make up the Misfit Economy. It examines the teeming genius of the underground. It asks: Who are these unknown visionaries? How do they work? How do they organize themselves? How do they catalyze innovation? And ultimately, how can you take these lessons into your own world?

Lessons in Creativity from Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs

The Misfit Economy

Shermin Voshmgir

Marek Tuszynski

Jacob Appelbaum

Vinay Gupta

Angela Richter

Raúl Krauthausen

Andrea Bauer

Tomàš Sedláček

Cristina Riesen

Elizabeth Markevitch

Geraldine de Bastion

Manouchehr Shamsrizi

Masha McConaghy

Monika Frech

Boris Moshkovits

The Krypto Economy elaborates on the underlying dynamics of our digital era to better create a responsible technological future. Living in a world of exponential technological advancement, we have new construction kits to create and probe possible realities. Marshall McLuan once said that first we build the tools and then the tools build us. We are designed by what we have designed. To design a utopian rather than dystopian future, we took a closer look at the status and potentials of our technological tools. Over a series of seven panel discussions — using some of the most analytical and imaginative minds — we experienced that today's digital instruments are our ultimate Kryptonite. Its benefits have the capacity to aid us exponentially. And yet, its destructive powers — mass surveillance, elimination of privacy, or virtual concentration of power — could push us down a terrifying path. With this book you can join the discourse and find the answers to the most fundamental questions to better navigate towards a responsible technological future.

Conversations on the Digital Era

The Krypto Economy

Alexa Clay

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