The phenomenon of technology transfer has existed ever since the beginning of technological progress. Having significantly increased in recent years, it will probably attract the world’s attention for many years to come. Many developing countries now appear to be seeking technological progress through technology transfer to realize development in a much shorter time than that required originally by developed countries. Technological dependence could be considered the opposite of self-reliance. One transparent indicator of its existence is a situation in which the major source of a country’s technology is abroad. When a country imports from a single country, it has a very high degree of technological dependence.
Important issues arise from technological dependence are as follows:
- As Information and Communication Technology infrastructure is the backbone of many frontier technologies, there is a risk of its triggering a new frontier technology divide, compounding an already existing digital divide.
- An estimated three billion people could still lack internet access by 2023, and many more will have little or no opportunity to reap the benefits of digital technologies.
- Frontier Technology per se is not the problem, but there are ethical issues surrounding privacy, ownership and transparency.
- Developing countries, in particular, are starting from a difficult position, because they are already grappling with the challenges of low human capital, ineffective institutions, and a difficult business environment.
- The system is also largely run by scientists-turned-bureaucrats and “nepotism, patronage culture” are prevalent.
- Also, the prevalent incompetence across the spectrum has taken a toll on ‘peer reviewing’ where incompetent scientists get to reinforce their mediocrity.
- There is a culture of elitism in our labs, where the manual work is done by lab assistants and scientists mostly just command orders.
