Message-ID: <199705042013.QAA20713@jericho.american.edu> Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 23:02:50 +0300 From: Joe Gichuki <mailto:Bdogithongo@FORM-NET.COM> Subject: INNOVATION IN THE THIRD WORLD To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dear "fellow" Devel-L'ers,I confess to having unsubscribed from this list a few months back because of the flood of theory discussions on what seem to be a great deal of irrelevant topics. (I still receive and enjoy my copy of Develop-Net News)
It is a little ironical therefore that I am seeking some theoretical material to assist me in a discussion I will be having on technology transfer as a component of industrialisation in Kenya. The fact is, there doesn't seem to be much on the theory of innovation anywhere in this town; and there isn't that much even on the WWW.
Can anyone, (if you're not too miffed at my excluding myself from the usual discussions) point me in the direction of a good text or texts on the theory of innovation? I would also be most grateful to hear your own views even if you don't have a specialist background in this area.
Just to give you an idea about the concepts I am tossing around, I am developing a paper discussing the role of innovation in technology transfer. I have descibed three categories of innovation, each driven by different forces. There is "original" innovation which is frequently spontaneous and arbitrary and frequently not recognised for what it is as inventors lack the resources or the ambition to sell. Then there is "transferred" innovation which consists mainly of adapting existing technology to specific different situations from those in which the technology was developed. An example is the adaptation of military technology to making non-stick teflon coated cookware. The third type I have disinguished is "Developmental" innovation which builds on existing technology to improve it. I suppose the latter two are what the economists call "induced" innovation.
The three are bound up with each other of course. But choosing a strategy that encourages technology transfer in the third world needs to recognise the differences so that effort can be focused on the types of innovation which the cost constraints of the developing country allow. For example, the bulk of R&D work is in the developmental innovation category. Huge labs and billions of dollars making cars run faster, bulbs burn brighter and longer, seeds produce more food, etc. On the other hand, they also are in societies where original innovation is praised and encouraged and gets quickly to the transfer and/or development stage. Suppose we focused our effort on finding more instances of likely-to-succeed original innovation which is often cheap and spontaneous and asked the guys with the money to help us develop or transfer it so that we could sell?
This is the sort of question I am addressing. I wouldn't wish to be the reason for a traffic jam on DEVEL-L. So please, I beg your indulgence; send the mail to my address.
Regards
Joe Gichuki Githongo & Associates Financial, Management and Agribusiness Consultants P.O. Box 47089 Nairobi Kenya
Tel (254-02) 228206(or7or 8) Fax 254-02 331068