From India To Africa: A Basket Of Technology To Transform Lives
Bangalore: Solar-powered lamps made in India and by an Indian company were distributed first in refugee camps in Ethiopia in 2009 to provide security to women and promote education.
Since then 100,000 of these SUNLITE Solar Lanterns, each of which provides 9 to 10 hours of light and charges a mobile phone to have about 40 minutes of talk-time, have been bringing light into the lives of over a quarter of a million people across the globe, including impoverished communities, disaster victims and people displaced by internal strife such as the ongoing Syrian conflict.
The lamp is one of the many Indian innovations in technology that are being embraced, especially by those who need it most, as in Africa. And the government is trying to develop a form of cooperation based on technology sharing with countries in the continent, which, in turn, would open new markets for technology developed in India.
"We are offering a basket of technologies spanning agriculture implements, food processing, dairy farming, telemedicine and mobile-based health applications," Arabinda Mitra, director, international cooperation, at the Department of Science and Technology (DST), told IANS.
"Nothing high-end, but low-cost, well-tested and honed in the home market, and that touches people's lives".
Many African nations in the past had traded natural resources for foreign currency and infrastructure such as roads, and bridges. Today, many are asking for technology transfers. As Professor Mwesiga Baregu of St Augustine University in Tanzania points out, technology transfers mean jobs and better development opportunities.
Mitra says the science and technology program is part of the government's policy to promote capacity-building in Africa through human power training, research platforms and infrastructure. Teams had recently visited Rawanda and Senegal.
"We are sensitizing the countries about the technologies that could be of use and they make their choices."
Science and technology are now increasingly recognized as a "soft power" tool of diplomacy. Not just the developed nations, India's BRICS partners Brazil and China are also using science and technology to advance their global competitiveness. Brazil has supplied knowledge from its healthcare and agricultural modernization, and China has agricultural experts in 35 African countries.
"It is a tectonic shift to the East with shattering implications," says Calestous Juma, international development professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, commenting on the "browning" of technology which has long been the domain of "white" Americans and Europeans in Africa.
"Western countries have been offering the wrong thing. Providing food aid or money isn't enough because food is more than calories, it is a way of life. What Africa needs is technical help, and that is coming mainly from Brazil, India and China... India is supplying technology to provide communications and land-based satellite information," Juma, author of "The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa", who advises the African Union on technology policy, told the New Scientist magazine.
