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Abstract
The appropriate technology (AT) movement is being driven by inventors and innovators who are interested in designing technologies that are culturally, environmentally, and economically appropriate, and feasible to construct and use for people anywhere in the world. This paper examines how open sharing of designs, specifications, and technical information can enhance effectiveness, widespread use, and innovation of AT. This commons-based open design method has been highly successful for software development (i.e., open source), and has also begun to be used in other fields through unique partnerships and new information-sharing tools on the internet. This paper critically demonstrates key examples of open design successes that can be applied to development of AT. It also identifies potential barriers to open-sourcing AT designs, analyzes business models for open design in the context of AT, and outlines practical solutions with examples currently underway.
Introduction
In order to overcome rampant global poverty and create just sustainable development (Agyeman, Bullard, and Evans 2003) a growing number of organizations are concentrating on the application of appropriate technologies (ATs) (Appropedia 2009a). AT, first conceptualized in the 1970s (Schumacher 1973), is defined as those technologies that are easily and economically utilized from readily available resources by local communities to meet their needs (Pearce 2007a). In addition, AT must comply with the environmental, cultural, economic, and educational resource constraints of the local community (Pearce 2007b). As such, AT can be understood as a social movement that rejects the mainstream discourse of development through technology, which has resulted in a highly uneven distribution of advanced technology and wealth throughout the world (Pursell 1993). Countering the focus of largescale technology implementation projects for economic development, AT focuses on small-scale, locally relevant, sometimes low-tech technologies in order to promote grassroots development and serve the world's underprivileged populations. Unfortunately, AT has not yet successfully scaled. The number of people around the globe suffering in poverty (Ferreira and Ravallion 2008) clearly demonstrates a need for marginalized communities to have access to AT and thus a new way for designing and disseminating AT. As globalization has helped spread internet access even to the world's least developed countries, the commons-based open design method has promise to accelerate the development of AT (Pearce and Mushtaq 2009). This open source design,...