Appropriate technology

Technology designed to fit the social, economic, environmental, and infrastructural conditions of the people who use it. It emphasizes accessibility, local control, maintainability, and suitable scale over maximum complexity.

Intermediate technology: Technology that uses modest capital and skills between traditional tools and industrial production. E. F. Schumacher proposed it as a practical model for technology suited to local conditions.
E. F. Schumacher: A German-born British economist who advocated human-scale economics and intermediate technology. Schumacher gave the movement its best-known intellectual and practical framework.
Solar cooker: A device that uses sunlight to cook food without conventional fuel combustion. Solar cookers can reduce fuel demand, but their usefulness depends on sunlight, cooking practices, and storage.
High technology: Technology characterized by advanced engineering, specialized knowledge, and often complex production systems. Appropriate technology does not treat technical sophistication as the main measure of usefulness.
Participatory design: A design approach that involves intended users as active contributors throughout development. Local participation helps ensure that a solution fits actual needs and practices.
Small Is Beautiful: A 1973 collection of essays by E. F. Schumacher criticizing economies centered on large-scale production and consumption. The book brought Schumacher’s case for human-scale technology to a wide audience.
Drip irrigation: An irrigation method that delivers water slowly near plant roots through pipes and emitters. Low-cost drip systems can conserve water where farmers can maintain their components.
Industrialization: The expansion of machine-based manufacturing and related economic and social change. Large-scale industrialization can conflict with the movement’s preference for local scale and control.
Technology transfer: The movement of technical knowledge, skills, or equipment between people, organizations, or places. Transferred technologies often need adaptation to work under different local conditions.
Intermediate Technology Development Group: A development organization founded by E. F. Schumacher in 1966 to promote practical technologies for poorer communities. It turned the intermediate-technology proposal into a program of research and fieldwork.

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