This paper discusses how science, technology, and innovation (STI) can be used to improve quality of life and sustainable development in developing countries. It argues that access to appropriate technologies promotes improvements in living conditions. The ability of local firms to access technological know-how is important for economic growth. Examples discussed include using computers to enhance production, transportation, energy, commerce, education and health. The paper concludes that developing countries cannot suppress change and must find ways for technology to be applied to address pressing needs.
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2nd ICESD 2016 Conference Paper 11
1. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE
THE QUALITY AND STANDARD OF
LIFE
2. A paper presented
by
OJO, Femi Taiwo and OJO, Dorcas Olufunmilayo
femi0806@gmail.com ,
ojofunmilayo60@gmail.com
( 08030707710, 07036302595)
Biology Department, School of Secondary Education
(Science Programmes),Federal College of Education
(Special), Oyo, Oyo State, Nigeria.
3. 2nd International Conference on Education for Sustainable Development
( ICESD-2016), 27th-28th July,2016. (SAN-DIEGO HOTEL, ABAKALIKI)
Abstract
This paper review how technology can be use to generate a more inclusive
position both as instrument of dominion and emancipartion. This positive view of
technology will be discuss with particular emphasis on the interrelationship
between technology and quality of life that will bring about steady improvements
in living conditions. This paper also talks about the usefulness of science,
technology and lnnovations (STI) in adding value to our social system. The ability
of local firms and enterprises to access technological know-how is fundamental in
providing products and services. The use of computer in enhancing production,
transportation, energy, commerce, education and health. STI will foster food
production and accessibility to good health. This paper concluded that we cannot
suppress change as a nation, we need to stop finding reasons why things cant be
done and find the reasons why they must be done as well as the right way to do
them before we wipe out ourselves.
Keywords: Quality of life, New technologies, Sustainable development,
Developing countries.
4. Introduction
Debates on how best to promote sustainable and inclusive development are
incomplete without a full consideration of issues of science, technology and
innovation (STI), shaping the future in order to realise economic and social goals is
one of the fundamental challenges of human society. Technology has proved key
in meeting this challenge, and its role appears set to remain at least as important
in the future. However, there are many uncertainties with regard to the
transformation of technological potential into positive economic and social
outcomes. Access to new and appropriate technologies promote steady
improvements in living conditions, which can be lifesaving for the most vulnerable
populations, and drive productivity gains which ensure rising incomes. Science
and technology have focused predominantly on access to essential medicines
(particularly for the treatment of HIV/AIDS) and on internet connectivity and the
related spread of communication technologies (ICTs). The favoured approach has
been through needs assessment and targeted capacity building (Anderson,1995).
5. Technology And Innovation For Catch-Up Growth
In this process, the ability of local firms and enterprises to access
technological know-how is fundamental to shaping their ability to
provide products and services, both of the kind that are essential to
improve living standards, and that could also promote growth and
competitiveness. This requires investment not only in higher value
manufacturing industries but also into sectors that contribute to
broader public policy goals (such as health, agriculture, nutrition and
environment) as well as across a range of activities that support overall
development, including also marketing, management and financial
services. Such investments, over a period of time, help to increase
absorptive capacity and the ability to adapt and apply existing
technologies, thereby leading to a gradual increase in productivity and
social welfare (Bell and Gray,1997). Knowledge accumulation in all
countries depends on steady investments to increase science
education as well as to improve the STI policy environment to foster
endogenous innovations, through all means of learning, including
research and development.
6. Effectiveness of Digital lnformation
Twenty-five years from now, after more than five decades of development,
the microprocessor, information technologies in general, and networks will
probably have penetrated every aspect of human activity. Many parts of the
world will be wired, responsive and interactive. Beyond simply accelerating
the pace of change or reducing the cost of many current activities, the use of
these high performance digital tools opens up the possibility of profound
transformations. There is a good chance that the advanced power of
computing will be used to help people stay in or create new kinds of
communities, both virtual and real. In some parts of the world, this could
mean a return to villages and less urban settings. In other regions, perhaps
where there is better infrastructure or other attractions, people will stick to
their ‘‘silicon alley’’. In either case, the use of computing power will allow us
to make choices about where and how we live and work that were not
possible before. The trade-offs imposed by distance will change in the
networked world of 2050. Physical isolation no longer needs to impose as
great an economic or social penalty.
7. The Use of Computing Power
Computers will probably influence the environmental costs of transportation by both improving
vehicle design/engineering (hybrid cars, hydrogen fuel-cell engines, etc.) and traffic management.
In the field of energy production and conservation, whole new horizons will open up as
computers and networks reduce the costs and risks of co-generation and allow the proliferation
of local management of energy production and use. Powerful computers will make it easier to
design products that are more environmentally sustainable because the production process is
less wasteful and the end-product can be recycled, re-used or remanufactured (Hinden,1996).
At a broader level, computer-enabled development of electronic commerce is likely to profoundly
modify current ways of doing business. Anyone with a computer and Internet access will be in a
position to become a merchant and reach out to customers across the globe, and any consumer
will be able to shop the world for goods and services. As a result, new products and services and
new markets should emerge, many a traditional role of intermediary could disappear, and more
direct relations will probably be forged between businesses and consumers.
In order to avoid drowning in an ocean of information, people will probably use ‘‘knowbots’’
(knowledge robots) to navigate effectively. Virtual robots with fairly narrowly defined tasks, a
type of expert software, will have reached the point of being able to track and respond to many
human needs, from the banal capacity of a networked toaster to identify users and recall their
preferences to the more advanced functionality of e-mail screening, comparison shopping and
assembling/tracking a person’s customised learning ‘‘adventures.’’ And in the field of healthcare,
self-contained portable sensing and diagnostic equipment linked up to remote expert systems
could bring about significant improvements in patient mobility and hospital resource efficiency.
8. Science and Technology in Food Production
Science and Technology in lmproving Human Welfare
Varieties of genetically modified plants are in use. It is not difficult to conceive of
routine production of transgenic customised livestock, fruit and vegetables, forming
the basis for widespread consumption of ‘‘designer’’ food and new varieties and
products (Dyson,1997). Transgenic sheep, pigs and cows may be kept as living factories
to produce proteins and other much sought-after compounds, for example in their
milk, or may be modified to resist particularly harsh climates.
The framework conditions influencing the rate and distribution of technological
advances can be broken down into three general categories: micro, macro and global
(Hinden,1996; Kelly,1997). Socio-economic factors at the Micro level involve, on the
one hand, the specific institutional and organisational patterns of families,
households, enterprises and government agencies, and on the other, the decisions
made by individuals in their roles as members of a household, workers, managers, civil
servants or politicians. Macro factors are the overall socio-economic circumstances
within which households and enterprises must operate. Here, the general conditions
and technological predisposition of product, labour and capital markets are shaped by
national monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies that can alter the predictability of
borrowing conditions (interest rates), price levels, competitors entering a market and
changes in employment rates. Lastly, Global framework conditions relate to the
management of, for example, the international system of trade, investment and
technology flows and planet-wide environmental interdependence.
9. Strategies For Encouraging Socio-Technical Dynamism
Four particularly potent and pervasive forces can be identified as prime factors likely to spur the
advance of socio-technical dynamism over the next few decades. First, the diffusion and
intensification of competition in existing and emerging markets locally, regionally and globally
seem set to provide an important stimulus to all forms of technological and organisational
innovation. Second, the transition to a knowledge economy promises to both rupture entrenched
relationships of the industrial era and open up new horizons for intangible, non firm-based value
added activity. In tomorrow’s networked knowledge economy, imagination – even artistry – may
become as important as the increasingly vital competitive edge gained by being first to market
with a new product. Third, growing economic, social and environmental interdependence,
particularly at the global level, will probably compel significant changes in the way knowledge,
resources and sovereignty are managed. And fourth, undiminished individual and collective
aspirations – people’s hopes for a better life – are also likely to play a major role in both altering
public policy parameters and leading individuals to take the risk of adopting new patterns for
structuring the where, when and how of many basic human activities. Each of these strong
currents could be expected to generate significant economic and social changes; combined, they
are likely to furnish a powerful wave upon which socio-technical dynamism will move into the
twenty-first century (Hinden,1996; Judge, 1997). Just as the transition from agriculture to
industry opened up a vast range of new choices for firms, individuals and governments, so too
could socio-technical dynamism and the transition to a knowledge-based economy and society.
10. The Three World
It is more useful to consider that there are three worlds. World 1 is the advanced
nations: Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. World
2 is nations where needs and resources are in rough balance and where most of the
rapid economic development is now occurring. World 3 refers to those countries –
Bangladesh and Nigeria are examples – that are in severe straits with no clear path to
a positive future. As a consequence, technology will not be uniform in its effects. The
likely flow in most cases will be from World 1 to 2 to 3. On the other hand many of the
choices that will be made in World 3 will reflect not the high income and consumer
orientation of World 1 but rather the realities of government dealing with the basic
necessities of food, clothing, shelter, sanitation and transportation. Fundamental
shapers of the next stages of the human enterprise. The great enablers will be:
• genetics technology;
• energy technology;
• materials technology;
• brain technology;
• information technology.
A sixth area, not itself a technology but acting as an influential wash over all
technologies, will be environmentalism (Fukumoto and Tonomura,1997).
11. Conclusion
• Science and technology have had a major impact on society,and their impact is growing. By drastically
changing our means of communication, the way we work, our housing, clothes, and food, our methods of
transportation, and, indeed, even the length and quality of life itself, science has generated changes in the
moral values and basic philosophies of mankind. So, where have we ended up? ? Is it true that those who
are not prepared to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it? Do we really only know where we’re
going if we know where we’ve been? Well, there are repeating factors, back then, that seem to be present
when change occurs, much the way cholesterol is with heart attacks, present and only may be causative.
First there’s the one that appears to be the most obvious, that change happens because you need it-
“Necessity is the mother of invention” and all that.
• To those of us condemned to repeat the lessons of history because we won’t learn from them, change
occurs ultimately because we want it to. We have the tools because at some time we decided we wanted
them. These new tools, provided by science and technology, are more than just tools-they’re instruments
of social revolution, violent or peaceful. As the tools change, so too does the ability of society to organize
itself. The main thing, it seems to me, is to remember that technology manufactures not gadgets, but
social change. Once the first tool was picked up and used, that was the end of cyclical anything.
• We cannot suppress change; we can and will manage it. As a nation we’ve got to stop finding reasons why
things can’t be done and find the reasons why they must be done, as well as the right way to do them,
before we wipe ourselves out. The widening gap between what we know and what we do with it, between
finite knowledge and infinite failure to use it, threatens to destroy the belief of all of us in our society.
• For these reasons it might be more reasonable to build a solar power station in space. Under such
conditions, we could make use of the entire range of solar energy 98 percent of the time, because the
stations could easily be positioned so they would fall into the Earth’s shadow only 2 percent of the time, at
the equinoxes. A chain of these stations around the Nigeria would allow most of them to be in the
sunshine all the time. Optimists have calculated that in space, a given area of solar cells will provide 60
times more energy than on the Earth’s surface. We can then imagine this chain of power stations circling
the Earth in the equatorial plane at a height of approximately 22 000 miles above the Earth’s surface. At
this distance their orbital position will just keep time with the surface of the Earth as it rotates about its
axes. If you stood on a spot at the equator and looked up at the sky with a sufficiently strong telescope,
you could see the solar power station apparently motionless above you.(Pottenger, M. and G. Lin ,1997)).