The discussion was designed to elaborate the dream technology as stated by the students in the previous class. The dream technology of Abitha’s called “Abitha Fuelizer” and Krupa’s called “Green fuel for two wheelers” was discussed.
Dream Technology
“Abitha Fuelizer” is a technology which is diagrammatically represented as follows -
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The technology is designed such that the first two stages are one place and the product stage is distributed. She also dreams that she wants to own the technology and also implement the technology herself in the market by running her business as she doesn’t prefer the Government to interfere in this process.
Coming to the next dream technology of Krupa’s “Green fuel for two wheelers” is to replace petrol or diesel with an analogous biofuel coming from algae. This technology is again diagrammatically represented as below -
Algal growth in glass tubes with reflectors to concentrate the sunlight just enough for the optimal growth | _ | Automated refining system wherein all the downstream work of purification, extraction and concentration | _ | Output or the Product The fuel supplied to the retailer like the petrol bunks |
The technology is designed such that the first two stages are one place and the product stage is distributed. She also dreams that she wants to own the technology and also implement the technology herself in the market by running her business as she doesn’t prefer the Government to interfere in this process.
Coming to the next dream technology of Krupa’s “Green fuel for two wheelers” is to replace petrol or diesel with an analogous biofuel coming from algae. This technology is again diagrammatically represented as below
| Algal cultivation of biomass in different pockets of the country clubbed with agricultural farming | Collected to different refining stations involving not much of automation but more of labour | Output or The product Supplied to the retailer or the petrol bunks |
Here in this process, the technology dreamt is for creating biofuel which is analogous to the petrol or diesel coming from the non-renewable source. The vision is to have a biofuel which could be used by the already existing engine technology, as such one major hurdle of acceptance is overcome. She wants to own the technology as well the process of production. She dreams of putting more manual labour than automation in it. The three stages of the technology are spatially separated. The profit of the technology is equity based i.e. the profit is shared based on the time and effort put in at each stage.
Validation of the dream technology
The dream technology was validated and re-defined with various other dimensions than what the actual dreamer had dreamt of. This involved the process of fractionating the dream into different domains primarily into four domains as listed below –
- Technology – This consisted of the science, engineering and technology involved in producing the product
- Resource Management – This was to define as to how are the resources going to be used for the process and how to channel them which involved factors like money, raw materials and others.
- Society - This dimension was to discuss how does it affect the society we live in.
- Culture – The technology we bring about how it could cause a change in the traditions and culture of a person and the community that he/she lives in.
The above technologies described were made better by bringing in these factors into consideration. Primarily it was only technology which was being dreamt and these other factors were kept at the periphery or neglected for unknown reasons. Nothing wrong in dreaming but iterative introspection was needed which was missing. That is a primary factor to be included in our process of dreaming.
To be more specific as to what was discussed with respect to above stated dream technology in these four domains is stated below in the two boxes.
| Abitha Fuelizer · What happens to land which would be cleared of for algal cultivation – effect of the industry on the agricultural land · How is the profit going to distributed · Would you want the fuel to be given as ration why can’t that be done · Wouldn’t it create an attitude of taking fuel for granted eventually! Like the way a villager who lives in Rajasthan considers water usage very judiciously to the people living in cities because city people take it for granted sometimes like - open the tap and the water flows. Tap is a technology! · How much of fuel would you produce? How much conversion and efficiency do you expect the algae to be working with | Green fuel for two-wheeler · Growing algae by farmer means do you take the knowledge of agriculture and use it for your product · Who are the ones who are going to taking the responsibility of cultivation - men, women or the children · Does the technology create a gender biasness · What happens to the countries which don’t have sufficient sunlight incident to make this technology feasible? Would it not cause biasness and hence socio-political issues · The fuels is just same as the petrol so what about the emissions released into the atmosphere · Would this technology not create trade monopoly |
These questions or statements arise because the dreams neglected these aspects as to how the technology we bring about makes a difference in all of us. Though it was specifically projected on the two different dreams but the thought process is the same in both the cases. On the holistic approach the technology and society are inseparable. Technology, society, culture, tradition, geography, government, community and an individual as such can not be distinguished into separate entities. They all form an integrated network. They all have different points of intersection at different time. The change in one dimension causes turbulence in the others as well.
Objectives for forthcoming class
- Pesticides and Herbicides – The history of pesticides and herbicides as to how was it brought up? The purpose or the need that led to this invention? What was the aftermath of it?
- Ultrasonogram – The birth and growth of this technology in the field of medicine
- Read the initial five to ten pages of the novel “When eight bells toll" by Alistair McLean and look into it technological aspect, changes caused in reader by the author and the critics
Thanks Krupa for this summary
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