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Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for International Development
This timely Handbook provides a conceptual discussion and an empirical review of new disruptive forms of innovation producing appropriate technologies, which address both the needs of low-income populations worldwide, and provides alternative solutions for sustainable development.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
More Information
This timely Handbook provides a conceptual discussion and a wide empirical presentation of new disruptive forms of innovation producing appropriate technologies, addressing the needs of low-income populations, and providing alternative solutions for sustainable development.
The Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for International Development expertly analyses and compares contributions of appropriate technologies in developing, emerging and industrialized economies, including China and India, and their global development impacts. Additionally, it covers the transversal role of new international communication technologies, open access, digital tools as well as entrepreneurship and innovation from within emerging economies and in industrialized nations. Using empirical analyses of cases and experiences in manufacturing sectors and services, it covers both the formal and informal economy, and provides an insightful focus on differences and similarities across borders and sectors.
NGO and private sector practitioners, public sector officers as well as academics specialized in development economics, entrepreneurship and engineering or management studies will find this Handbook to be illuminating and very informative. Science and technology producers and entrepreneurs will appreciate the global look into more sustainable development as related to appropriate technologies, and how they can be used across all economic backgrounds.
The Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for International Development expertly analyses and compares contributions of appropriate technologies in developing, emerging and industrialized economies, including China and India, and their global development impacts. Additionally, it covers the transversal role of new international communication technologies, open access, digital tools as well as entrepreneurship and innovation from within emerging economies and in industrialized nations. Using empirical analyses of cases and experiences in manufacturing sectors and services, it covers both the formal and informal economy, and provides an insightful focus on differences and similarities across borders and sectors.
NGO and private sector practitioners, public sector officers as well as academics specialized in development economics, entrepreneurship and engineering or management studies will find this Handbook to be illuminating and very informative. Science and technology producers and entrepreneurs will appreciate the global look into more sustainable development as related to appropriate technologies, and how they can be used across all economic backgrounds.
Critical Acclaim
‘Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for International Development is an outstanding contribution to bring out the progress of such innovations and appropriate technologies helpful for the development of people across the world. This book serves as a value pack for researchers, scholars and, in particular, practitioners working in the area of technology development and entrepreneurship for local community sustainable development impacts, and how they can be commercialised through various public–private inroads.’
– Raunak Gupta, The Journal of Entrepreneurship
‘The chapter authors take a comprehensive and eclectic approach to “global engineering” in all its aspects, from academic research and learning, to practical approaches by international organizations and NGOs, to the experience of practitioners and communities who experimented with appropriate technologies — or were experimented on with them. This compendium explains the origin stories of the pathbreaking practitioners and organizations, and provides both the traditional socio-economic and political frameworks for appropriate technologies as well as the new, somewhat controversial, decolonization narrative, with a range of LMIC examples. The human aspect gets attention, including the need for protection of subjects and participants, and the ethical dimensions, with the limitations university’s institutional review processes may face about collection and analysis of data, use of AI and machine learning techniques to tease out insights and learning, to making these analyses available to the non-specialist as well as to the participants and other stakeholders. The scholar, the practitioner, the student, and the innovators will all find things to like and reflect on as we move from appropriate technologies to the broader intellectual and political context for applying what we learn to engage with the poor to improve their lives.’
– Paul M Cadario, University of Toronto, Canada
– Raunak Gupta, The Journal of Entrepreneurship
‘The chapter authors take a comprehensive and eclectic approach to “global engineering” in all its aspects, from academic research and learning, to practical approaches by international organizations and NGOs, to the experience of practitioners and communities who experimented with appropriate technologies — or were experimented on with them. This compendium explains the origin stories of the pathbreaking practitioners and organizations, and provides both the traditional socio-economic and political frameworks for appropriate technologies as well as the new, somewhat controversial, decolonization narrative, with a range of LMIC examples. The human aspect gets attention, including the need for protection of subjects and participants, and the ethical dimensions, with the limitations university’s institutional review processes may face about collection and analysis of data, use of AI and machine learning techniques to tease out insights and learning, to making these analyses available to the non-specialist as well as to the participants and other stakeholders. The scholar, the practitioner, the student, and the innovators will all find things to like and reflect on as we move from appropriate technologies to the broader intellectual and political context for applying what we learn to engage with the poor to improve their lives.’
– Paul M Cadario, University of Toronto, Canada
Contributors
Contributors include: Nancy Adams, Joe Amick, Abdelhamid Benhmade, Amy Bilton, Yu-Ling Cheng, Levente L. Diosady, Boru Douthwaite, Dan Frey, Musandji Fuamba, Amit Gandhi, Elizabeth Hoffecker, Morris Huang, Binod Khadria, Jane Khayesi, Kendra Leith, Ahmed Mahmoud, Roy William Mayega, Ratnam Mishra, Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou, Samuel Pierre, Balkrishna C. Rao, Philippe Régnier, Biswapriya Sanyal, Heini Shi, Amy Smith, Dan Sweeney, Evan Thomas, Koshy Varghese, Sher Vogel, Pascal Wild
Contents
Contents:
Introduction to the Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for
International Development xiv
Daniel Frey, Samuel Pierre, Philippe Régnier, Koshy Varghese and Pascal Wild
PART I APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY: ORIGINS AND
EVOLUTION OF A CONCEPT
1 Revisiting the concept of “technology for the people”: from Gandhi and
Schumacher to 21st century new developments 2
Philippe Régnier and Pascal Wild
2 MIT D-Lab: designing for a more equitable world 7
Amy Smith and Nancy Adams
3 Solving problems and strengthening systems: how local innovation of
appropriate technology contributes to development 22
Elizabeth Hoffecker and Boru Douthwaite
PART II THE RISE OF EMERGING ECONOMIES AND NEW CONTRIBUTIONS
4 The rise of emerging economies: implications on appropriate
technology development in theory and practice 47
Philippe Régnier and Pascal Wild
5 Entrepreneurship, appropriate technologies and economic development
in China 54
Heini Shi
6 Technological transformation in India: the debate between appropriate
and frontier technologies 71
Binod Khadria and Ratnam Mishra
PART III RECENT INNOVATIONS AND APPROPRIATE
TECHNOLOGIES IN TRANSFORMATION
7 Technology evaluation for global development: exploring the efficiency
of comparative methods 87
Daniel Frey and Bish Sanyal
8 Mobilizing higher education and research toward engineering for global
development: the approach taken by the Centre for Global Engineering 103
Ahmed Mahmoud, Amy Bilton, Morris Huang, Levente Diosady and Yu-Ling Cheng
9 The participatory design spectrum: design for, with, and by 125
Kendra Leith, Sher Vogel and Khanjan Mehta
10 Frugal engineering 140
Rao Balkrishna
11 Financial technologies and rapid development growth in emerging economies 154
Jane Khayesi
12 Openness and new development perspectives 168
Abdelhamid Benhmade
13 How technologies can be used to reduce poverty and promote
sustainable development in Haiti: the case of the PIGraN Project 187
Samuel Pierre
14 Ethical considerations for “Internet of Things” in research to advance
global development 207
Daniel Sweeney, Amit Gandhi and Evan Thomas
15 High-stake conditions to catalyse local sustainable development
through Fablabs in Africa 222
Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou
16 The importance of local institutions: bottom‐up innovation in Uganda 240
Joe Amick and Roy William Mayega
17 How locally adapted information and communication technologies
(ICTs) may contribute to the citizens’ socio-economic conditions in
emerging countries: case study in the DR Congo 259
Musandji Fuamba
Index
Introduction to the Handbook of Innovation & Appropriate Technologies for
International Development xiv
Daniel Frey, Samuel Pierre, Philippe Régnier, Koshy Varghese and Pascal Wild
PART I APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY: ORIGINS AND
EVOLUTION OF A CONCEPT
1 Revisiting the concept of “technology for the people”: from Gandhi and
Schumacher to 21st century new developments 2
Philippe Régnier and Pascal Wild
2 MIT D-Lab: designing for a more equitable world 7
Amy Smith and Nancy Adams
3 Solving problems and strengthening systems: how local innovation of
appropriate technology contributes to development 22
Elizabeth Hoffecker and Boru Douthwaite
PART II THE RISE OF EMERGING ECONOMIES AND NEW CONTRIBUTIONS
4 The rise of emerging economies: implications on appropriate
technology development in theory and practice 47
Philippe Régnier and Pascal Wild
5 Entrepreneurship, appropriate technologies and economic development
in China 54
Heini Shi
6 Technological transformation in India: the debate between appropriate
and frontier technologies 71
Binod Khadria and Ratnam Mishra
PART III RECENT INNOVATIONS AND APPROPRIATE
TECHNOLOGIES IN TRANSFORMATION
7 Technology evaluation for global development: exploring the efficiency
of comparative methods 87
Daniel Frey and Bish Sanyal
8 Mobilizing higher education and research toward engineering for global
development: the approach taken by the Centre for Global Engineering 103
Ahmed Mahmoud, Amy Bilton, Morris Huang, Levente Diosady and Yu-Ling Cheng
9 The participatory design spectrum: design for, with, and by 125
Kendra Leith, Sher Vogel and Khanjan Mehta
10 Frugal engineering 140
Rao Balkrishna
11 Financial technologies and rapid development growth in emerging economies 154
Jane Khayesi
12 Openness and new development perspectives 168
Abdelhamid Benhmade
13 How technologies can be used to reduce poverty and promote
sustainable development in Haiti: the case of the PIGraN Project 187
Samuel Pierre
14 Ethical considerations for “Internet of Things” in research to advance
global development 207
Daniel Sweeney, Amit Gandhi and Evan Thomas
15 High-stake conditions to catalyse local sustainable development
through Fablabs in Africa 222
Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou
16 The importance of local institutions: bottom‐up innovation in Uganda 240
Joe Amick and Roy William Mayega
17 How locally adapted information and communication technologies
(ICTs) may contribute to the citizens’ socio-economic conditions in
emerging countries: case study in the DR Congo 259
Musandji Fuamba
Index
