It is not a surprise to find that the South is less technological advanced than the North. But how well do we know the problems that the developing countries, in special the emerging ones (BRICs) have to face daily in order to get some technological advances?
Well Heng Liu, director general of the International Center on Small Hydro Power said it clearly: “The shortage of fund is maybe the biggest challenge” as well as the technological gap. Yes, emerging countries have made technological advances BUT developed countries are still a step in front. Yiping Zhou, Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation named 3 challenges that avoid the technological transfer to one country to another:
- lack of enough mutual understanding between developing countries. Different cultures create sometimes communication problems.
- the South cannot share the successful experiences of development
- to transfer this successful experience to one country to another is a bit hard
But if there are problems, there are of course solutions. Summing up Zhou says that “smarter solutions, smarter partnerships and smarter investment” are the keys to decrease the gap between North and South.
So surfing in the internet to get a little more into this topic I found an example of an emerging country that is improving technologically really really fast and that is China.
China being an emerging country is in a good place economically but has the same challenges as a developing country. However, this country wants to become the leading robot producer having an important technological gap. I find this really amazing and ambitious knowing that the robot market is dominated by Swiss, Japan and Germany. Moreover, the skills and techniques in China are far to be as fancy as in the other 3 dominant countries and the distribution channels are a bit restraint. Despite all the disadvantages, China with a growth on demand of 51% year to year is expected to become the top industrial robot seller in 2014. IMPRESSIVE!!
China has the needed potential in technology that is for sure. But the country is not the only one to have a “secret weapon”. I also found an important technological advance in the developing countries that got my eye: the hydropower. This is the future of the world and that is why I think it is worthwhile to spend some time researching on it…. Maybe next week?
