In this presentation, and believing in necessity-driven technological solutions, we present a few guidelines for the creation of a Code Of Conduct for people interested in socially-responsible engineering and science. The motivation for this Code Of Conduct is derived from work done with minorities and endangered communities in Mexico. Introduction of new technology must first consider the cultural and environmental surroundings, as well as the actual needs that drive its implementation. These guidelines are divided into three sections on how to interact with: Individuals, Communities and Technology.

1. Creating a Code Of Conduct For
Socially-Responsible Engineering For
Appropriate And Appropriable
Technologies
Hector Dominguez and Joaquin Rosales
Talleres Libres de Artes y Tecnologias. Mexico.
< InterSymp 2008 >
20th International Conference on
Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics
(Baden-Baden, Germany, July 24-30, 2008)

2. HOPE
WITH THIS EXPOSITION, WE WANT TO
ENCOURAGE PEOPLE IN SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING TO GET INVOLVED IN
PROJECTS WITH PEOPLE LIVING IN
DIFFICULT SITUATIONS AND MARGINATED
FROM MAIN STREAM RESOURCES AND
TALENT.
SHARING IS THE BEST HUMANE WAY TO
PROGRESS

3. Technology impact
Technology can be
defined as the collection
of techniques used to
solve problems.
A major goal of
Technology is to
improve social life;
however, technology
may have negative
effects.

4. COMPLEX SOCIAL LIFE
We are all
interconnected to each
other in different and,
sometimes, unexpected
ways.
Our society is the result
of an evolutive process,
not only biological but
cultural as well.

5. HOW DO WE MEASURE
PROGRESS?
Using indexes:
Wealth
Measuring Macro Economic Parameters
life expectancy
Corporative indexes
Cultural parameters
(Many global parameters equalize the worst
and best cases, forgetting about middle
points)

6. HOW DO WE GET REAL
PROGRESS?
By localizing development and
evaluations.
Considering local context
Being more humanistic instead of pure
mechanistic evaluations
Understanding local Cultural background

7. What is Social Responsibility
Social responsibility (Social Accountability
International, 1997) can be interpreted as working
along sustainable, technological, and cultural
development of communities, driven by local
situations, culture and environment.
It implies recognizing, protection and, defense of
human rights for individuals, and collectives. This
does not mean to act based on prejudice, but on
clear analysis, and fundamental humane
principles.

8. Social Responsibility
Social responsibility considers the environment as a
whole ecological system, where living beings are
connected to each other. Every action has to be
evaluated according to the impact on the
environment due to actions or inactions of human
activity.
Social responsibility means a deep respect towards
the human cultural activity, local traditions and
beliefs.

9. What do we do?

10. BE RESPONSIBLE AS
INDIVIDUALS IN OUR OWN
FIELD, SEEKING AND
PROMOTING AWARENESS OF
LOCAL SITUATIONS IN A
HUMANE AND REALISTIC
APPROACH.

11. CODE OF CONDUCT ON
TECHNOLOGY: AN APPROACH
We started thinking about a set of statements to
represent our thoughts and experience on our
work on Technology.
The following statements derived from a
constant exercise of reflexion and self
evaluation.
We need to mention that these statements are
constantly in change and adaptation and do not
represent a static set of content.

12. CODE OF CONDUCT
Each individual is a human being with same rights as any other.
Every individual has the fundamental right to pursue his or her
own happiness without negatively affecting others. Mutual
respect and communication is fundamental to build a
community, and, therefore, a society.
All individuals working on technology must look after safety,
health, and public wealth as their main priority. In their
constant deployment of their work, individuals in technology
must work in a objective and truthful way, as well as to be
ethically and legally responsible of their actions, honoring their
reputation, and profession.

13. SOCIAL RESPONSIBLE
ENGINEERS AND SCIENTIST
Socially responsible engineers and scientists need to
avoid and report any abuse, lack of respect,
exploitation of people or resource.
Be promoters of non-violence, tolerance to other
cultures, understanding among people, and
women's participation in technology development
projects.
Any self promotion by using or abusing of the
integrity of others is also considered as a form of
corruption.

14. SOCIAL RESPONSIBLE E&Sc
A fundamental Principle when working with communities,
is the respect towards cultural integrity, spiritual, artistic,
religious, and scientific traditions based on human rights.
Therefore, Engineers may require assistance of local
experts. When a foreign element is introduced into a
community, it might create negative consequences.
It is mandatory to understand the cultural and natural
context and, based on that, forecast as much as possible any
consequence and impacts in the community due to the
engineers actions and presence or their Technology.

15. APPROPIATE TECHNOLOGY
Socially Responsible Engineers have the responsibility
for ethically managing community resources and
knowledge, minimizing the negative effects of their
activities to others and the environment.
Developing appropriate technology for a community
is not an easy task. The use of native languages for
accessing and developing technology is fundamental.
Appropriate technology solves real needs, based on
understanding of the problem and local resources.

16. APPROPRIABLE TECHNOLOGY
Appropriable Technology is such that local communities can
afford it, be trained in it, and understand its principles in the
right amount of time in order to allow good results.
For instance, Socially Responsible Engineers need to consider
easy access to technical support, preventive and corrective
maintenance and have a local set of experts with proper training.
It is important to include local community experts during the
planning phase in order to assure a better understanding of the
needs, and desired results, as well as keeping alive further local
work.

17. FAIR TRADE
In order to achieve self-sustainability, it is important to
motivate commercialization of products developed of
the community projects; such commercial use must be
authorized by the community itself and follow the rules
on fair trade.

18. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
All Socially Responsible Engineers must recognize the
community intellectual property (IP) contained in their
knowledge and existing expertise.
They should facilitate any legal protection of local IP
and secure sensitive information that may expose
private information of individuals, or that may affect
negatively the whole community.
Socially Responsible Engineers respect the privacy and
confidentiality of any member of the community.

19. FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS
The spirit of free exchange of ideas is a mean for
common growth, we recommend the use of open
technologies and explore different ways to protect
legally community knowledge and expertise, as well as
any development coming from the collaborative work
done for these projects.
So far, Creative Commons licenses offer a range of
options for the authors and communities to choose.
This is not the only option around, people can pick
from other types of license like GNU, for instance.

20. CONCLUSIONS
This paper is only a compilation of thoughts and ideas by us and
many other people, and adapted to our local reality. Our final
goal is to motivate others to think about ways to keep our world,
a beautiful and diverse place to live in.
We use all these ideas to create our Code of Conduct which
dictates our principles for interaction inside our organization
with communities and others. It is also a document for
institutional self-awareness and education.
Engineers and scientists are part of an elite that must confront
their responsibilities, and, far from maintaining the status quo,
the new millennium represents an opportunity to use that talent
to understand ourselves better as a society.

21. THANK YOU
Talleres Libres de Artes y Tecnologias
http://julius.dnsdojo.org
https://julius.org.mx