1. April 2012 Bangalore, India
Change the World – A Story
Amit Kapoor
Kathalaya Intensive Course
16th – 21st April 2012

2. Story Details
Title: Change the World
Fact File: Inspired by the book "Gutenberg the Geek" by Jeff Jarvis
Level: Entrepreneurs - trying to make a difference
Questions for discussion:
- What makes a great invention?
- What makes a great inventor?
- How do you measure your impact on the world?
Activity:
- Write the story of a “change agent” that has inspired you
- Write your own story as a change agent
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3. Introduction
I love books. I am sure many amongst you here also love books.
Well, who has not gone to bookstand and held a new book - and held it lightly,
trying not to smudge the cover with the sweat on his hand. And trying to scan
through the pages with both his eyes, to soak in as much of the book as he can
in the 30 seconds he has in the stand. And all the time hearing the rustle of
pages being turned everywhere around him in the bookstand.
Well, who has not gone to a friends’ house and held an old book. And opened it
to smell the yellow stained paper that only grows better with time, and gingerly
tried to flip the pages ever mindful of the glue sticking the page to the spine.
We all love books. But have you ever wondered how the book came to be. How
these letters, and words, and sentences and paragraphs and stories that we all
love to read - came to be printed on this paper in this book.
Let me tell you its story.
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4. The Story (1/3)
It was a long long time ago - well to be exact 6 centuries 62 years ago.
One scribe would work hard for three years to produce one hand written copy of
the book for one customer - usually rich patron or a church. It was hard, it was
slow and it was painful.
Many had tried to print before. The Japanese had made engraved wooden block,
The Koreans had made it moveable. But it was still so difficult with their script to
make it work. Scribes – ones with a quill dipped in ink and writing with their hand
- were still better than any known way to print.
Yet it was an invention waiting to happen. The Romans developed the simple
Latin Alphabets (only 290 distinct characters – much less than the orientals) and
the Chinese developed the paper, which had spread everywhere in the world and
had finally come to Europe.
And it all came together in little town in Germany called Mainz.
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5. The Story (2/3)
There was one man who figured out how to make little molds of the letters of the
font using lead, tin and antimony - so that they could all be line up together to
make words and sentences and paragraphs and stories.
He figured out the perfect paper with the right thickness which could be printed
on both sides after dampening it with little bit of water. And he made the perfect
ink - from linseed oil, soot and amber.
And he put it all together, in what is now called the first printing press. It took him
more than 15 long years, but he did produce the first book ever printed - Donatus
Latin Grammar. With its crammed pages and squat font - it was no work of art.
But it did lead to his second book and the greatest book ever published - the 42
line Bible. It was magisterial - truly a work of art - with harmonious layout, perfect
setting and silky black impression. It was of a quality that is rarely matched even
today.
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6. The Story (3/3)
In the next fifty years, more books were published than what had been hand
copied by the scribes in a thousand years before. And in the centuries that
followed, the printed book propelled the age of renaissance, age of discovery, the
age of enlightenment and the age of industrial revolution.
So the next time you open a book – a new book or an old book, pay your own
little homage to this man from Mainz - Johannes Gutenberg.
Thank you.
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