Technology Catch-Up

Contrary to common perception, there are numerous opportunities for technology development in the country. Since the Spanish era, the Philippines is dependent on imported technology and goods . Although the market is flooded with mass produced products from China and very high-tech equipment from US and Europe for consumers, local industries and producers has a huge demand for manufacturing, automation and information technologies. We will call these technologies as 'appropriate technologies'. They are not necessarily low technology but neither are they cutting-edge technologies. But they are the set of technologies 'needed' by local industries today thus the term 'appropriate'.


A key concept of our Technology Catch-up Strategy is to encourage Technology Workers, the scientists and engineers, to do Appropriate Technology development. Ideally, they should be doing cutting-edge research to push the limits of science and technology. But if they want to commercialize their technology someday, they must start with developing and commercializing appropriate or mid-level technologies.

Dr. Henry Ramos of the National Institute of Physics has developed a technology for diamond-coating using plasma technology. It is a cutting-edge research and he was able to publish it internationally and is currently applying for patent. The primary application of his technology is on semiconductors. However, if it Dr. Ramos wants to earn from his discovery, one option he could consider is in diamond-coating ordinary things (knives, industrial cutters, etc). There has to be a way to quickly and cheaply apply diamond-coating. This is one possible direction of his research.

But he couldn't pursue this. Why? If you look at the metal industry of the country, knifes and metal works are still done by hand using technology developed generations ago. With this scenario, Dr. Ramos wouldn't be able to use his technology to improve the quality of local knives because the local metal industry is not yet ready for his discovery. There should be people willing to first develop the metal industry in the country.

This should be something that the government must act upon but Scientists and Engineers could accelerate the process. They must do work on 'appropriate technology' at least on a part time basis to enable the development of support technologies and support industries for their high-end researches. Otherwise, there researches will just be castles in the sky without foundations.

Working on mid-level technologies will give technology developers a realistic view of the prerequisites of technology commercialization. Usually, the more complex the technology, the more difficult it is to commercialize. By doing 'appropriate technology' work, the will be able to participate in the commercialization of product. It is so much easier to manufacture and sell a 'new, improved and revolutionary' cooking stove that it is to sell a 3-Dimensional Holographic Storage media. However, the steps in R&D and commercialization of the 'new' stove and the 'new' storage media are similar. Instead of learning commercialization in books, they should try developing and commercializing a simpler technology just to learn the ropes in conceptualizing the product, developing a manufacturing system, a marketing plan and looking for financial support. The know-how and experience they will gain will give them momentum in commercializing their actual researches in the future.

Another offshoot of this strategy is that scientist/engineer (now considered an inventor) will gain money from successfully commercialization of one product. He will earn from it. This financial gain becomes extra money that could then be use to finance bigger commercialization projects. Little by little, through appropriate technology, we will gain the capability to go in bigger, more ambitious endeavors.

i-ARC System Integrators

i-ARC System Integrators (http//i-arcsys.blogspot.com) is a company that follows this strategy. Rodec, an Instrumentation Physics graduate, together with his partners, Danilo Rey,an Industrial Automation expert, and Edwin Allas , an IT Professional, proves that using overskilled engineers to develop products produces amazing results. Together they prove the power of knowledge management and networking. Working with limited financial capital, they were able to produce several products quickly at minimal R&D cost using a network of knowledge workers.

Below is a picture of an Automated Barrier they have developed. We have learned that there are locally manufacture Automated Barrier. Most of barriers cames from Italy and it cost around P80,000 each. We believe that we can design our own barrier at a much less cost.



It might not seem much but the clients is very please with this barrier. Especially since its been seven years since it was installed and its still working perfectly. But the really special thing about this barrier is this.. it took us two weeks to develop it. This is the reason why we jokingly call our rapid product development methodology as the " two weeks is a long time" methodology.

Besides the automated barrier, there are numerous other equipment that are extensively use by local industries that has no local manufacturer. An example industry is in healthcare raising the cost of setting up properly equiped hospital laboratory. We helped Jobwell Medical Equipments ( http://i-arcsys.blogspot.com/2008/08/jobwell-medical-equipment.html) to develop their line of locally manufactured medical equipments. Other opportunities abound in numerous other local industries. We just have to open our eyes to see them and take the effort to fill the gaps.