THE PEDANTIC SERIES (Essay 2)
Technology-Transfer and the Real Fruit of the Matter
by Caloy Peña, MDS

If technology then, thus by far bringing convenience, sassy logic and effectiveness in understanding messages, is meant to be exclusive for the privileged few, what use has it to better the life of the common man? Should not innovations and discoveries be meant to abate the plight of the mass instead of exhault the status of the oligarchic class whose power and money is in themselves widening the socio-economic benefits gap?

The few who believe that technology's pricetag is an evil that needs to be blindly accepted are furthering the concept of underdevelopment – lauding the few who have a grasp of the resource at the expense of the many – and then asking everyone else to label it as an innovation that saved the world, bringing forth convenienc, better access and magnanimous technological achievement, when all the while it is as much a marketing scheme as any other service out in the buyer's landscape.

What good then does it bring to us? An assuring statement for the ones who can afford that they are untouchable, exclusive and or unique - to the point that the following has become a tribe in itself, cultish to a point yet denying from itself that it is. Funy how the world – at least those who can afford to back it up – have labelled such technological feats as mind-blowingly pivotal to the current epoch that we have.

Succombing to it all is everyone else who have forgotten the bigger issues – technology-transfer, adaptation to the Internet's vast resource to accommodate the disenfranchised, relief from the disparity caused by technology itself. Funnier still is the fact that we have equivocally labeled such an endeavour as visionary. It may have indeed been visionary to have found better ways to deliver information and to communicate, but there is nothing laudable with widening the ravine between those who cannot afford nor access the technology from those who can. In the end, those who can merely shrug their shoulders and blame everything as a function of economics.

True, it may be such a function, but instead of the snooty reprise of it all, shouldn't there have been efforts to create bridges to makes the ideas available to everyone? We are reminded of the Hole in the Wall internet project in India, where computers were placed on the other side of a wall's hole and then gave free internet access to passers-by, anchoring on man's intuitive nature to discover things on his own.

It definitely is not as bad as it can be, correct. True enough, the advances in technology have paved the way for better access, mobility and informatiion sharing, but sadly, this is true only for those who cnan afford it. What of those who cannot? What then awaits them, as technology after another pile up and are launched to serve those who have greater access, resources and schema? To many then, we see a dimmer future, unless true technology-transfer avenues are created. Question is, though, will anyone actually create the avenues if they know that by doing so, they'll lose mileage, marketing, the following, and more importantly, the Benjamins?