Prioritizing the Poor’s Preferences and Needs in Technology Design
Within the last decade, technological and material advances across a variety of sectors have made it possible to create more efficient, and in many cases, more cost-effective products and technologies for those living at the base of the pyramid (BoP) than was ever possible before. Indeed, it seems that everywhere you look these days – from the daily news to academic competitions to social start-ups – that new inventions or twists on existing technologies are popping up, each promising ever more effective, affordable, and durable technological solutions.
Striving to make products and technologies “better” is important in the ongoing effort to supply BoP populations with goods and services that will improve their quality of life and, ultimately, help to reduce poverty. However, as development practitioners, we must not lose sight of the fact that the “technology-side” of product and technology development is only half of the challenge. Producing technologies that push efficiency “limits” to new levels while simultaneously reducing production costs and extending the longevity of the technologies is often not enough to ensure real impact and progress. Why? Because culture, personal preferences, ingrained habits, etc. influence how people react to technologies, what they want from technologies, and how they will use (or not use) technologies - regardless of whether they are wealthy or poor. In other words, the “people-side” of development needs to be better incorporated into the product and technology design process.
Mini Sensors and the Future of Impact Assessment
The interest in impact assessment, metrics, and all things related to project monitoring and evaluation in international development is increasing. Rightfully so. Too many well-intentioned development projects fail to produce the intended outcomes and often cannot explain why. The better the answers the international development community has to the questions “what works?” and “why?,” the better equipped we will all be in affecting positive change.
However, assessing project impact and understanding those vital cause and effect relationships is not easy. We humans are notoriously tricky study subjects. We tend to be forgetful, frequently unobservant, desirous to give answers we think the researchers and interviewers want to hear and/or intent on giving less self-incriminating information that disguises that fact that we rarely wash our hands with soap even though we know better.
Phobias, Manias, and Addictions
Frank von Hippel says of the Japanese continuing production of plutonium – in addition to the 35 tons stored around the world – for possible use in a “next-generation” fuel in power reactors, “It's crazy. There is absolutely no reason to do that."
Perhaps not. The faith in plutonium goes back to the roots of nuclear power – not just the first use to which Japan was subjected to, but also the dream of perpetual power, of the breeder reactors. In fact, the very first grid electricity from nuclear fuel was produced in an experimental breeder reactor and even though most countries have given up on the breeder technology, some after wasting billions of dollars, some still continue – in particular, India.
How ironic that Japan should press on with the nuclear dream while Germany, the original villain against whom the US had considered using nuclear power, has given up. Even more ironic that the country that suffered and hence foreswore the pursuit of nuclear weapons should actively promote its nuclear wares to the first openly defiant weapons proliferator – again, India.
