Technology Foresight

Dr. Abdelwareth SarhanProfessor of Chemistry

Expert of Science (ISESCO)

ISESCO

ISESCO Member States in theWorld

57 Countries of over 200 in the world.1.3 Billion People of the world population.

Million Km2 of the world area

• Technology

• Foresight

• Technology Foresight

• Strategy

• Technology and Economy

Technology

Technology

DefinitionTechnology comes from the Greek technología the study ofsomething, or the branch of knowledge of a discipline.

What is Technology?

Technology is the usage and knowledge of:-ToolsTechniquesCraftsSystemsMethods of organization in order to solve a problem orcreate an artistic perspective.

Definition of technology". Merriam-Webster. http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/ technology.Retrieved 2007-02-16.

Technology Past and Present

In the mid of 20th century,humans had achieved a masteryof technology sufficient to leavethe atmosphere of the Earth forthe first time and explore space

The invention of theprinting press made itpossible for scientists andpoliticians tocommunicate their ideaswith ease, leading to theAge of Enlightenment; anexample of technology asa cultural force

The Sphinx in Giza, Egypt In the background isthe pyramid of Khafre (Chephren). Still thetechnology used is mystery.

• Kinds of Technologies

– Education Technology

– Science Technology

– Biotechnology

– Medical Technology

– Gene Technology

– Engineering Technology

– Agriculture Technology

– Information Technology (IT)

Technology

• New technology has been injected into the workplace at anexponentially increasing rate over the last few decades.

• Development of IT led to an increasingly mobile workforce.

• We are no longer tied to our desk in order to stay in theinformation loop. We can take our office with us wherever wego.

- Cellular phones.

- Blackberries

- Ultra-mobile PCs

All those permit to access e-mail and other data products at a wide rangeof locations. A wide range of new technologies have given businessesaccess to faster communication, increased efficiencies, and the ability towork away from the office (Mamaghani, 2006).

Information Technology (IT)

E-mail, teleconferencing, video conferencing, andnew emerging technologies are enabling peoplearound the world to communicate and collaboraterapidly and efficiently.

Information Technology

Effect of Technologies

Technology significantly affects:

Human

Animal Species

Environment

Climate Change

Biodiversity

Education

Research

How the developed countries benefited from TECHNOLOGYand what we have done?

Gorilla uses a branch as a walking stick togauge the water's depth; an example oftechnology usage by primates

Education Technology

• In a 1994 Software Publisher's Association (SPA) study, researchfound that:

- Educational technology has a significant positive impact onachievement in all subject areas, across all levels of school, andin regular classrooms as well as those for special-needs students.

- Educational technology haspositive effects on student attitudes.

- The degree of effectiveness is influenced by the studentpopulation, the instructional design, the teacher’s role, howstudents are grouped, and the levels of student access totechnology.

Education Technology

- Technology makes instruction more student centered,encourages cooperative learning, and stimulatedincreased teacher/student interaction.

- Positive changes in the learning environment evolve

over time and do not occur quickly.

Role of ICT in Sustainable Development

ICT can play an important role in sustainabledevelopment if the decision makers in cooperation withthe educational institutions joined in hand to achieve thefollowing objectives:1) Social equity2) Increasing Productivity3) Integrity and Transparency4) Education and research5) Employment6) Strengthening National Income7) Healthcare8) Universal access9) Environment, climate and disaster management10) Support to ICTs

• The human use of technology began with the conversionof natural resources into simple tools.

• The prehistorical discovery of the ability to control fire touse for cocking food.

• Invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling inand controlling their environment.

• Recently technology used for printing papers and press.• Telephone, Telegram, Internet communication which

become as one of the best inventions in last threedecades and allowed humans to interact freely on aglobal scale.

• Transportations:Cars, Trains, Aircrafts and submarines, etc

• Satalites

Uses of Technology

Use of Technology

• Solar Energy.• Desalination of salt water.

Only 2.53% of the world water is fresh water• Space Technology• Marine Technology

Solar Cell World Water Map, UNESCO

MILSTAR: A communication satelliteSputnik 1: The first artificialsatellite to orbit Earth

An artist's concept of a Bion satellite in orbit

Space Technology Satellites

Navy Submarines

Luxury SubmarineTourist Submarine

Marine Technology

Dangerous Uses of Technology

Technology has been used for the development of

• Mass destruction weapons

• Chemical weapons

• Biological Weapons

• Nuclear weapons.

The first nuclear weapons were gravitybombs, such as this "Fat Man" weapondropped on Nagasaki, Japan. They werevery large and could only be delivered byheavy bomber aircraft

The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing ofNagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945 rose some 18kilometers (11 miles) above the bomb's hypocenter

The Manhattan Project createdthe first nuclear bombs

Nuclear Test

Do we have to deter this crime and brutality

Where We Are?

• The question now is why we waited all this time andwe were satisfied our self to play the role ofspectators.

• For this long time why we did not participate activelyin making the technology we need.

• Even when God blessed us with natural resourcessuch as oil and natural gas and many other wealthwe seek for alien to share and guide us.

• We must wait too long and we have to start nottoday but yesterday to fulfill our needs from everythings.

Forsight

Forsight

Foresight is widely used but is always referenced with theimprovement of decision-making.

- Foresight is defined as a systematic,

- Future intelligence gathering and medium to long term

vision building.

- Process aimed to identify opportunities and areas of

vulnerability to assist present-day decision-making.

- In general, five elements are essential for the realization

of any foresight exercise:

- Projections,

- Participative methods,

- Networks,

- Strategic visions and decisions/actions.

• A future planning application (Foresight) should beclear that the following fields are applicable.

- Infrastructure

- Vision

- Objectives

- Expected Results

- Manpower

- Cabability

- What next?

Foresight helps in:-Providing useful information regarding possible futureoutcomes.

Foresightrelies on dialogue, analysis and assessment

have valuable communication applications.

Scenarios, which help users understand and assimilate to theforesightexercise.

Foresightalso helps identify weaknesses and

inconsistencies.

Increased awareness of possible risks, thus resulting in moreeffective decision making processes.

Modelsof Foresight Process:

1) Pre-foresight.

Includes tasks to be undertaken before Foresight begins.

2) Foresight and alternatives.

3) Post-foresight (implementingresults).

The third and final stage of post foresight involves:

- Change decisions on R&D priorities in ministries and research

councils.

- Providing inputs to company R&D strategies.

- Improving industry-science-base partnerships.

- Influencingwider government policy on regulation, standards

- Drawing lessons for the next Technology Foresight

programme (in five years time).

Technology Forsight

Technology Forsight

Technology foresight involves predicting and preparingfor the opportunities and challenges that newtechnologies offer.

1. Policy Development:

Decision makers recognize the need to broaden thesources of input to policy development, thereforeshifting from an “elite driven, top down” approach to abroader participatory approach.

Technology Forsight

2. Strategic Planning:

Incorporating a planning style that acknowledgeshigh level of uncertainty, over the medium and long-term. This may require a proactive or facilitative roleto encourage the development of solutions in thepresence of uncertainty.

In these cases longer range strategic planning is anecessity.

Technology Forsight

3. Future Studies:

The development in the methods of futurestudies should resulted in a shift in emphasison predictive approaches to explorative ones.

Equally important, is the recognition thatvisions developed by futures researchers mustbe done in relation with decision makers.

Technology Foresight

STRATEGY

STRATEGY

Development of Technology needs a strategy takescare of:

• The linkage of corporate business strategy andtechnology strategy.

• Infrastructure for new technology

• Technology forecasting.

• Technology assessment.

• Product planning.

• Integrated technology road-mapping.

Technology strategy is the task of building, maintaining andexploiting a company's technological assets.

Strategic visions are developed to ensure guidance andstructure throughout the foresight exercise, and present daydecisions must be eventually linked with this vision.

Boosting the private sector as an engine of growth and povertyreduction.

Determinants of the strategic plan for technology:-

• Technology Vision.

• Creating Enterprise Strategy.

Technology Strategy

• Strategic Intent.

• Technology Intelligence.

• Innovation Portfolio.

• Project Portfolio Management.

• PrimaryCriteria to Assess Innovation Portfolio.

• Diversification Strategy.

• Process of Absorbing a Revolutionary Technology.

• Technology Strategy Development for SMEs. المؤسسات الصغیرة والمتوسطة.

• Technology Road-Mapping: Management Functions.

• Technology roadmaps help to:

- Identify new business opportunities.

- Validate internal knowledge and communicate ideas.

- Improve technology portfolio decisions.

- Leads to portfolio development.

- Develop effective technology strategy.

- Provides a practical instrument for middle- and

long-range technology development .

Strategy Roadmap

- Corporate business strategy formulation by aligning

internal and external resources and social

marketing factors.

- Identify technologies.

- Define a migration from one to another within

the company.

- Perform more generic Technology Management

Functions.

Strategic Trends

• A trend is a discernible pattern of change, which canbe linear, accelerating or decelerating.

• A driver is a factor that directly influences or causesthe change directly or indirectly.

Example is: better healthcare allowing greater lifeexpectancy.

• A shock is a high impact, low probability event. Anexample of a shock is: global collapse of financialsystem undermines confidence in capitalism.

The Impact of New Technologies

• Understandingthat developing countries which aspirefor adopting new technology will have to build up asubstantial intellectual capital in their own way and inaccordance with their own circumstances.

• This is possible only through:

(a) substantial capital resource.

(b) link between science and technology.

(c) link between universities and industry.

(d) a large pool of highly qualified scientists, engineers

and technicians.

World crude oil reserves according to international groups, 2007.

How technology can be improved in DevelopmentCountries?To answer this questions we have to focus on the:-

- Human resources.- Natural resources.

Source: United Nation for Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Resources

World natural gas reserves according to international groups,2007.

Source: United Nation for Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Country Region Joined OPECPopulation(July 2008)

Area (km²)

Algeria Africa 1969 33,779,668 2,381,740

Angola Africa 2007 12,531,357 1,246,700

Ecuador * South America 2007 13,927,650 283,560

Iran Middle East 1960 75,875,224 1,648,000

Iraq Middle East 1960 28,221,180 437,072

Kuwait Middle East 1960 2,596,799 17,820

Libya Africa 1962 6,173,579 1,759,540

Nigeria Africa 1971 158,259,000 923,768

Qatar Middle East 1961 824,789 11,437

Saudi Arabia Middle East 1960 28,146,656 2,149,690

United ArabEmirates

Middle East 1967 4,621,399 83,600

Venezuela South America 1960 26,414,816 912,050

Total 369,368,429 11,854,977 km²

* Ecuador initially joined in 1973, left in 1992, and rejoined in 2007

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

The global distribution of value added of manufacturingindustries During 2003 - 2005

Year IndustrialCountries

Africa SouthAmerica

South &East Asia

West Asia& Europe

2003 73.4 0.9 6.4 18.0 1.3

2004 72.6 0.9 6.4 18.7 1.3

2005 71.6 0.9 6.4 19.7 1.4

Source: United Nation for Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Are we exporters or importers of Technology?

• Infrastructure.

• Expansion in the use of information technology andcommunicationsTechnologies (IT and ICT).

• Agriculture.

• Food industry.

• Reform of Education.

• Science and Technology (ST).

• Research and Development (R&D).

• Overcome of unrest in some places.

• Malaysia amongst the ISESCO Members States is an excellentexample. Japan as international example.

Nigeria as a Case

Nigeria planned to be 20 in 2020 to achieve that a lot of workand Efforts should be directed to:-

Constrains Facing Sustainable Development in the Member States

(a) The economic indicators, including available natural resources of MemberCountries, to bring out the gravity of human deprivation.

(b) The present state of S&T development in Member Countries, indicating atthe same time, the gaps which need to be bridged for harnessingtechnology

(c) The opportunities that exist in the Member Countries for capitalizing onnew technologies for the improvement of economic and social sectors.

(d) the features of new technologies, and the manner in which the Members

countries can plan to acquire them in order to catalyse economicdevelopment, notwithstanding the fact that modes of acquisition maydiffer from country to country depending on their needs and availablematerial and human resources.

(e) Add whatever you know................................

Technology andEconomy

Technology and Economy

• The economic data show that only five ISESCO MemberStates are placed amongst the high Human developmentnations, not because of advancements in science andtechnology, but because of high revenues from naturalresources.

• The countries which belong to the medium humandevelopment group are struggling to develop a scientificand technical infrastructure.

• The low human development countries, to which most ofthe African countries belong, have problems both with theeconomyand S&T infrastructure.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

• In recent years, the UNDP experts on human development haveemphasized the use of Human Development Index (HDI) forcategorizing countries, as "high", "medium" and "low humandevelopment".

• Of the fifty five Islamic countries (OIC members), as well as thosewhich have observer status, only five have been placed amongstcountries with "high human development" (HDI equal to orgreater than 0.800).

• These include: Brunei Darussalam (HDI rank 25), Kuwait (HDIrank 35), Bahrain (HDI rank 37), Qatar (HDI rank 41) and UnitedArab Emirates (HDI rank 43).

• Amongst these countries high human development is essentiallydue to abundant natural resources such as oil and gas.

• This has enabled them to invest heavily in the social sector, andthus raise the quality of life of their populations.

Values of Human Development Index (HDI) and HDIRank of ISESCO Members States

Arable and Irrigated Land and Agricultural Productionin ISESCO Members States

Thank You