Monday 17 June 2019 5:00pm to 6:00pm
Edmund Leach Room, Department of Social Anthropology Free School Lane, Cambridge
About
With alumnus Professor David Prendergast (Maynooth University)
The Life and Times of a Corporate Anthropologist
In 2006, David Prendergast received an intriguing invitation to become involved in the establishment of a $36 million research centre focused on sociotechnical research and design of technologies for independent living in Ireland. Within six months, he had left his academic trajectory and found himself sitting in the middle of a ‘cube farm’ in one of the most advanced industrial plants on the planet. This talk outlines his journey into, through and out of Intel over the course of eleven years, pausing along the way to visit various multidisciplinary projects on digital health, ageing, and smart cities and discuss the enjoyable but occasionally tempestuous role as an anthropologist working at the academic-industrial interface.
