Assignment 2: Who are these new innovators?

Innovation has been traditionally a male domain. The vast majority of innovations are made by men,
who represent a tiny fraction of global population. As the readings in this lecture conclude, male
dominance in innovations results from the long term social, economic, and cultural structures. We live
still in the “man-made world”, which is created, designed and managed by men.

However, innovation is a never-ending process and it changes over time in relation to the time and
space. During the last decades, more female innovators have broken through the glass ceiling. Although
this process has been painfully slow, women are changing the innovation environment.

Now, the information age has opened access to the global information flows and massive data banks. It
has also created new business opportunities for those who can navigate in the global networks and
master ICT technologies, codes, and algorithms. This new group ICT professionals are called post-
modern talents.

However, there is also a group of ICT professionals, who are called “hackers”. According to the
definition, black hat hackers are cyber criminals, who attack and crack systems with malicious intent.
White hat hackers are ethical hackers who identify and fix system vulnerabilities. Gray hat hackers a
located somewhere in between and they don’t have the prior knowledge or consent of those whose
systems they hack into.

As the readings and video clips suggest, hackers are usually labelled as outlaws, but on the other hand
the represent post-modern professionals, who are operating outside the established business
environment. Although many of them penetrate through the legal boundaries, it is not fair to regard
them as outlaws. It is worth to remember that many disruptive and radical innovations have been
“illegal” when they were first introduced (for example Uber and Airbnb). Also many “heroic innovators”
disliked the bureaucratic atmosphere of the large corporations and preferred to work independently
and without organizational restrictions.

Your task:

First read carefully the articles and watch the video clips in order to familiarize yourself to the hacker
theme. Once the ideas and concepts are internalized, construct an intelligent and academically sound
report which discusses “hackers as post-modern innovators”. Pay attention to the way they operate,
who they are, what gender they represent and what are their motives. Make comparisons with the
previous innovators and enrich your analyzes with observations and assessments.

Please write a report, max. 3 pgs (follow the instructions given in the first assignment). Upload your
paper (PDF-format) to the Moodle by Sunday January 29th before 23.59.