Both, market forces and public systems are unable to provide remote rural communities of developing countries with contextually relevant and appropriate technologies. This is because the number of people and their incomes are too low, to constitute either a market or a political constituency. Consequently, development aid and development projects emerge as the primary means of introducing new technologies to these regions. However developmentalism is heavily inscribed with economic determinism resulting in the conception of technologies that are focused at the level of the nation state and whose primary objective is to increase its productive and consumptive capacity in an attempt to jumpstart economic growth. This results in mass technologies that are inherently violent, ecologically damaging and which restrict individual freedoms. Furthermore, these technologies end up replacing rather than building upon the only resource in which the poor are rich; traditional knowledge and the ability to innovate and contextualize technologies to their own local worlds. How can we disembed the conception of technologies from development aid and build upon the resources of the poor instead of seeking to replace them? How can we create a knowledge network that assists in taking the technological innovations of the poor from concept to market and which protects intellectual property rights and allows follow-on innovation. The emergence of networked computing accompanied by new paradigms of production such as peer to peer and open source along with a rethinking of the ‘commons’ which not only reduces development costs but also geographic barriers to collaboration presents us with a unique opportunity to satisfy these conditions. This thesis will therefore explore the feasibility of engaging with Open Source methodologies for facilitating user led technology innovations in developing countries. This includes the many operational and disciplinary challenges that must be addressed before seeking to contextualize Open Source methodologies for the Industrial Design process. It will investigate the intrinsic character of computer software and its development process for insights that can help determine if the open source methodology can be extended to Industrial Designers and the Industrial Design discipline. If yes, what forms of contextualization would be required? Finally, this study will conclude by outlining guidelines and an architecture for the conception of an Open source Community that facilitates user led technology development. / Master of Engineering (Hons.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/273618 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Desai, Gaurang, University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Engineering |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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