How could you turn sand into modern tech products (Apple, Wii, flat screen TV), including the once unimaginable (Facebook, Ebay)? Why do tech products get better but cheaper? How do the tech products affect the way we live and relate today? How can tech wastes and bi-products destroy communities and what can be done by laws? These questions will be addressed in this course through a series of lectures, brain-storming discussions and presentations. Not fiction or myth, it is based on a true story: the story of silicon (including the famous Valley).

* This GE course will be discontinued with effect from Semester A 2018/19