"The main research question is: how have several new terms for environmentally less damaging ICT, and their related practices, given expression to redefinitions of technology in relation to an escalating environmental crisis? To answer this, I will explore the historical terms soft technology and Appropriate Technology, the contemporary term
permacomputing, six terms associated with feminist server practices—ecofeminist and always unfinished space making, i diakomistis, jenga computing, patchwork computing, seismography of artistic practices and with / in limits—and photographic practices giving a visual redefinition of technology. I will discuss these through an exploration of four
sub-questions: What is the etymology of each of the terms? What are the key concepts? How does each compare to past practices? And lastly, how does each challenge prevailing definitions of technology?"

The Image at the End of the World: Communities of practice redefining technology on a damaged Earth
https://post.lurk.org/@l03s/115264061152984683

#appropriatetechnology #technology #permacomputing #smolnet #smallweb

Project 2025 as a last gasp of a dying system of “power-over,” one that fears the regenerative, relational force of the people, the Earth, and the sacred.

#USPol #Project2025 #Tiamat #PowerWith #NoKings #ReclaimTheWeb #TiamatLives #ManyCurrents #KinNotCrowns #FromStoneToSong #Biophilia #Wilderness #Rewild #Rewilding #Regenerative #RegenerativeDesign #UniversalDesign #RegenerativeAg #RegenAg #AppropriateTechnology
#Ancestors #Compassion #SocialJustice #Humanrights #SystemsChange #Food #Health

Selco’s solar innovations for the poor

No, not that Selco, the UK builders’ warehouse with the radio jingle. I’m talking about Selco India, another winner to profile from this year’s Ashden Awards. Selco are, at first glance, a solar company. They provide solar installations in rural locations, including clinics and hospitals – something that can be life-saving when you consider the consequences of child-birth or surgery with an unreliable electricity supply.

They also develop and sell ‘solar powered livelihood systems’, machines designed to pair with solar and empower small businesses. There’s a whole range of these, from solar powered milking machines for dairies, to pottery wheels, a rope making machine or a chilli grinder.

These sorts of things can revolutionise a small business. A farmer with a simple milking machine saves a huge amount of time with each cow, meaning they can run a larger herd in the same amount of time. It can also remove drudgery, the most boring and repetitive types of work. A solar powered blower for a blacksmith’s furnace replaces hand-operated bellows. The aforementioned chilli grinder takes over the manual pounding of chillies, a handful at a time, with a stone or wooden pole.

These sorts of machines already exist, but they’re not always suited to small off-grid solar. Selco adapts them to run on DC power or adds batteries to account for variable power. Thinking off-grid sometimes opens up new possibilities, such as this mobile photocopying service that runs off the back of a scooter, adapted to create a business for an entrepreneur with disabilities.

Technology isn’t enough in this context. In order to make their pioneering machines affordable to those that need them, Selco have to find innovative financing models as well. That’s an important part of their work, providing business loans or working with local government to offer grants. This needs presence on the ground, and Selco are committed to listening and being accessible to the marginalised communities they serve. They talk about going the ‘last mile’ and providing a service on the doorstep.

Selco won an Ashden award in 2005 and then again in 2007, which helped them to scale up. They were able to expand into new regions, and are now sharing their expertise through the Solutions Portal, and replicating their model in other locations in Asia and Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpmkYO9cIq4

• Featured photo shows Surekha Gopal Gokak with her solar-powered roti maker . Photo by Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Ashden.

#appropriateTechnology #ashden #india

Climbing the energy ladder with BURN

At the Ashden awards last week, BURN won the Award for Outstanding Achievement. It’s a special category in honour of the 25 anniversary of the awards, given to a previous winner who has gone on to do extraordinary things.

BURN make affordable cookstoves which save families money, reduce indoor air pollution and help to protect forests. They won an Ashden award in 2015 for their first cookstove design, and at the time they had sold 62,000 of them. Ten years later they sell five million stoves every year in 14 African countries, employing 3,500 people across their factories Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania. This year they plan to open three new factories, including one in Madagascar.

Their impact so far is enormous, saving an estimated 14.7 million tonnes of wood and cutting global emissions by 26.2 million tonnes. (To put that number in perspective, 26 million tonnes is the annual footprint of the entire country of Denmark.) With a third of the world’s population still cooking on open or basic fires, there is plenty more to do.

Efficient cookstoves are the ultimate example of an intermediate technology, or as E F Schumacher called them, appropriate technologies. They are locally available and affordable, the kind of thing that is accessible to the people who need them most. A lot of solutions proposed for global development are inappropriate – see Bill Gates’ hydrogen toilet. Or the ill-fated One Laptop Per Child project, which attempted to design and give a laptop to every child in the world, including the ones who really just needed a pencil.

The downside of appropriate technologies is that they can appear to be second best. Despite all the benefits to a clean cookstove, someone cooking on an open fire might aspire to cook on an electric range. A better wood fire is thus best seen as a step along an energy ladder, not the end goal.

BURN have understood this and offer a range of products in response. There are LPG, charcoal and biomass stoves, and also an electric induction hob. It’s sold in a bundle with the pans you need, and it can be paid for with a ‘pay as you cook’ finance model so that those on very low incomes can still get one. So BURN don’t just shift people off the bottom levels of the energy pyramid, they help them move a step at a time towards the top. These are stoves that bring benefits to health and to finances as well as carbon reductions. They’re also stoves that people want, and that make them feel proud.

Here’s a video introduction to their work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPXVgtv-Wqg

#appropriateTechnology #kenya

Start-ups working on sustainable innovation.
Off-grid clay fridges, lotus yarn, smart farming tools.

Low-cost, high-impact design: https://justpaste.it/ikrd-ft

#TechForGood #SustainableDesign #GrassrootsTech #AppropriateTechnology #SocialImpact #LowCostSolutions #Permaculture #OffGrid #SocialEconomy