Socially Responsible Design in the Context of International Development

Human beings evolved for many millennia; during most of that time, our major social contacts were within small, tightly knit groups who shared a common language, culture and physical context. Now, we find ourselves to be a part of a global community. Though we still have very different cultures, languages, perspectives, and physical contexts, we also share a planet with limited and shrinking resources and we share many interactions in our intellectual, technological and economic spheres. Potentially, technology offers many benefits to the many peoples of the world. Yet, there is also potential for damaging the diversity in the ecology of ideas and cultures that may be indispensable for humankind to survive the next millennium. More immediately, technology developed without sufficient understanding and involvement of those to be most affected by it will probably fail at best and in the worst cases, not only fail to provide anticipated benefits but produce negative side-effects. One such side-effect may well be making future technological usage more difficult.