Amber Case (born

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

) is an American cyborg anthropologist, user experience designer and public speaker. She studies the interaction between humans and technology.

Biography

Case was born in about 1986. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology from

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

in 2008, having written a thesis about cell phones. In 2008, she co-founded CyborgCamp, an unconference on the future of humans and computers. In 2010, Case and

Aaron Parecki According to Abrahamic religions, Aaron ''′aharon'', ar, هارون, Hārūn, Greek (Septuagint): Ἀαρών; often called Aaron the priest ()., group="note" ( or ; ''’Ahărōn'') was a prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of ...

founded Geoloqi, a location-based software company. The company was acquired by

Esri Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

in 2012. In 2015, Case left Esri to work for a new company called Healthways where she became the managing director. In her work, Case often declares that we are all cyborgs already, as a cyborg is simply a human who interacts with technology. According to Case the technology doesn't necessarily need to be implanted: it can be a physical or mental extension. She argues that these days we now have two selves: one digital, one physical. Her main focus in recent years is Calm technology, a type of

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...

where the interaction between the technology and its user is designed to occur in the user's periphery rather than constantly at the center of attention. Case describes it as a technology that "gets out of your way and lets you live your life." In 2015 she published the book 'Calm Technology' on the subject.

Works

*''An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology'' (CreateSpace, January 2014) *''Designing Calm Technology'' (O'Reilly Books, October 2015) *''Designing with Sound: Fundamentals for Products and Services (co-author Aaron Day)'' (O'Reilly Media, Inc., December 2018) *''A Kids Book About Technology'' (A Kids Book About, 2021)

Awards and honours

In 2010 Fastcompany magazine named Case as one of the most influential women in technology.

Appearances

In January 2011, Case performed a

TED Talks TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

titled 'We Are All

Cyborgs A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

Now.' Case gave a talk at the 'ePharma IMPACT' 2019 conference, which took place in 19–21 March 2019 in New York, NY.

References

External links

Cyborg Camp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Case, Amber Scientists from Portland, Oregon 1980s births Living people Lewis & Clark College alumni American anthropologists