One-liners on Appropriate Technology
"AT is technology with a human face." - E.F. Schumacher
APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY—The application of current scientific knowledge and technology in such a way so as to conform with existing economic, infrastructure, social, and cultural conditions and practices. By extension, the concept implies the implementation of low-technology solutions incorporating simplicity of design, use, and maintenance.
Source: NALMS
Appropriate technology - Technology suitable to local conditions.
Source: Cooperating for Development
Appropriate technology - A technology that complements the factor endowments of the country.
Source: Virtual Zambia
Appropriate Technology n. a flexible and participatory approach to developing economically viable, regionally applicable and sustainable technology
Source: IISD Developing Ideas
Appropriate Technology - Set of useful technologies imposing least intellectual economic, social, or even environmental costs to the country.
Source: CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Appropriate Technology - designed to be used in developing countries and should be easy to use by the unskilled, and easily repaired on the spot.
Source: Vestas, IUCN
Appropriate Technology (AT) describes a way of providing for human needs with the least impact on the Earth's finite resources. Is the technology built locally or use local materials? Can it be built, or at least maintained, with a minimum of specialized training? Is its use sustainable over many generations? Does it cause suffering in its manufacturing or use, human or otherwise, disproportionate to its benefits? Can we financially afford it? It's a way of evaluating a technology, a way of thinking about the social, economic, and environmental impacts of introducing a technology into our lives, and a technology may be appropriate in some situations and not in others.
Source: Campus Center for Appropriate Technology
To be appropriate, technology must be connected to the place, resources, economics, culture and impacts of its use.
Source: Development Center for Appropriate Technology
Appropriate technology is being mindful of what we're doing and aware of the consequences. Appropriate technology works from the bottom up; it is not an overlay to the situation; it is a genuine grassroots solution to economic needs.
Source: Journey to Forever
Appropriate Technology reflects an approach to technological development, characterized by creative and sound engineering, that recognizes the social, environmental, political, economic, as well as, technical aspects of a proposed technological solution to a problem facing a society. Generally appropriate technologies are smaller scale technologies, that are ecologically and socially benign, affordable, and often powered by renewable energy.
Source: Dennis Scanlin
Appropriate Technology - Technology that is accessible and affordable to ordinary women and men to use in their own communities, and which is both economically and environmentally sustainable for them.
Source: Center for Applied Community Technology Systems
Appropriate technology is defined as: Technology that is essential, affordable, of low maintenance and furthers the sustainable use and management of resources and opportunities in arid lands with due discernment of the local environmental, social, economic and political settings, conditions and values.
Source: Appropriate Technologies for Arid Lands
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