Amber Case (born 1986) is an American cyborg anthropologist, user experience designer and public speaker. She studies the interaction between humans and technology.

Biography

Case was born around 1986 in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. 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. It was founded in 1867 and is situated on the historic M. Lloyd Frank Estate in South Portland's Collins View neighborhood. It is composed of three distinct but adjac ...

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 the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament (L ...

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

Esri Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for ...

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 Calm or CALM may refer to: Acronyms Organisations * Cal-Maine (NASDAQ: CALM), an American egg producer * Campaign Against Living Miserably, a UK charity * Department of Conservation and Land Management (Western Australia) * California Living Museu ...

, a type of

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

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 Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

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 A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

, which took place in 19–21 March 2019 in

New York, NY New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

References

External links

Cyborg Camp
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Case, Amber Scientists from Portland, Oregon 1980s births Living people Lewis & Clark College alumni American anthropologists Year of birth missing (living people)