Full Description
Russian computer scientists have been much in the news recently, with allegations of hacking and of interference in the US presidential election. This book explores the social background of Russian computer scientists. It considers the excellent education system of the Soviet Union which greatly encouraged computer science, highlights the different development path taken by computing in the Soviet Union/Russia compared to the path followed in the West and examines the post-Soviet migration of many Russian computer scientists, many of them Jewish, to other parts of the world. It discusses the difficulties many of these Russian computer scientists have had in assimilating in their new countries, both in work and in their wider situations, and reveals the existence around the world of many autonomous enclaves of highly intelligent, globally-minded people, with a huge capacity for high impact technical innovation and no allegiances to existing national, corporate and social structures or ideologies.
Contents
Part I1. Post-Soviet Ecosystems of IT2. Before the Collapse: Programming Cultures in the Soviet UnionPart II: Outward-Looking Enclaves3. Siberian Software Developers 4. At the Periphery of the Empire: Vladivostok's IT Industry5. Branding Kazan: Constructing the "IT Capital" of the Country 6. Hackerspaces and Technoparks in MoscowPart III - Coding Collectives 7. From Lurker to Ninja: Creating an IT-community at Yandex8. For Code and Country: The Civic Hacking Movement in Contemporary RussiaPart IV: Anglosaxon Dreams9. Russian Computer Scientists in the UK: Contacts in the Migration Process10. The Rise and Fall of the "Russian Techie" Brand in London 11. Brain Drain and Boston's "Upper-Middle-TechPart V: Bridges12. "We Were Jews Back in Russia, and We Are Russians in Israel"13. Russian Programmers in Finland: Self-Presentation in Migration Narrative14. E-Estonia Reprogrammed: Nation Branding and Children Coding
