Today, many of the countries have been developed well, however, some of them still cannot adapt to the newest technologies and their citizens live poor. Appropriate technology came out due to this problem because the shortage of infra in developing countries can cause the technology of advanced countries into a useless way and be connected to a major incident by a sort of accident. To solve this, people match the level of the development direction of technology on the level of developing countries’ infra. In other words, the word, ‘appropriate technology’ is one of the solutions of ‘technical retardation’, which is the phenomenon when the change speed of material culture cannot catch the speed of non-material culture.

▲ Appropriate technology used in worldwide place

In an appropriate technology, tech which already fell behind such as passive development pump and old type radio play an active role, however, it is not true that appropriate technology must be the old type mechanism. Although it is the newest tech, it can be also appropriate technology if we minimize the production or maintenance fee. In addition, it can be adopted everywhere if people just focus on the specific social level or occupational category unless it is developing countries. Only it has common qualifications that it should not only trigger environment pollution but also improve the life condition of regional communities. For such reason, using fossil fuels like coal and petroleum are usually excluded in an appropriate tech. Of course, if we extremely reduce the usage of fossil fuel, it can be also appropriate tech.

Professor Bae Sang-Min in KAIST invented sound spray which expels mosquito with ultrasonic waves. Its shape looks like the spray but the function is not. It can charge by shaking, so people can use the whole life after buying it. We can use it for an hour to eight hours per minute shaking. Above this, there are so many technologies being developed and used. Now light, life straw, RaspberryPi can be an example.

▲ Sound spray which expels mosquito

Appropriate technology is widely needed because of its features. It does not need large scale infrastructures and it is eco-friendly. Also, its development is achieved on the basis of the actual place environment. I hope people could live a better life as soon as possible by appropriate technologies.

12.28. Kim Dae-Hwan