Technological Learning

By: Bikal Dhungel 

We live in a world of technology and are surrounded by all sorts of technologies which we have started to take for granted. The chair in my room is not just a piece of wood but the wood was cut carefully, attached to other parts, the back was designed exactly to suit my body where I can lay comfortably. I didnt designed it myself but somebody in a country I live knows how to make this. I also should not know to sew my own cloths, somebody else does this for me. May be a skill I posses also helps others. Additionally there are advanced technological devices in my room and I have no clue how it was made. But this is what made humans to progress. Billions of people learn billions of things, some of them make material stuffs which we can use in our daily life. Hence, the source of our progress is technological learning. We learn further and further, make things better and efficient and on the way we also might make money. Technological learning means being better by learning new things, new technology. Technological learning will lead to technological capability, technological change, then probably technological capacity which will develop an output. This output is the chair in my room the computer where I am typing now and the public transportation I use to go to college.

Technological learning takes place exclusively in rich countries. Poor countries contribution in technological learning is close to null. That is why they are also dependent on the technological supply from rich countries be it medicine or mobile phones. Most poor countries still practice subsistence farming, or have few resource extraction firms which also use technology made in rich countries. But it should be easy to understand now that acquiring technology is key to economic development. Hence, developing countries should do everything to induce technology in their countries. For that, they need to do some homework. This can be choosing an economic policy that embrace the ideas from abroad, that is open to Foreign Direct Invest (FDI) where firms from abroad invest in their countries, they should also invest in Research and Development, and they should create a learning environment.

Technological learning is not just learning pure technology by a firm or a person, it should be in all levels of a country. Individuals, firms, industries, governments, social sectors and more and it should be managerial, institutional, economic, scientific etc. However, it should be noted that a society is unable to learn when the basic capacity is not available. In this case, when a country has full illiteracy, though you transfer finest technology, it is not going to work. People should possess a certain level of human capital to be able to learn technology.

Still, it is not a menu to success. Developing countries in general are failing to build the fundamentals. FDI for example is a big problem for various reasons and in most cases, poor countries themselves are not capable to change this. To have an open economy is a nice phrase to tell but in practice it is complicated to install. Even then, you need creative and strategic policies to encourage firms to invest in your country. So, in this scenario, it is logical when poor countries concentrate on building up their own capability. This can be achieved by reforming the education sector and increasing the average schooling of people, retaining the brain and bringing mechanisms to stop brain drain, designing mechanisms to increase the number of researchers in an economy, if possible even with subsidies, spending in research and technology, by encouraging high-tech devices from abroad, encouraging people to participate in international learning and providing infra-structural fundamentals for this.

Most importantly, entrepreneurship should be given most support. It is indeed the private businesses that is the driver of technological change. Although they do for their own profit, the spill over will affect the whole society. Except the internet, which was designed for the US Army, all other major inventions and discoveries came from profit oriented private enterprises. So in the initial stage, they need support. Most small and middle scale enterprises also face problems like information asymmetry where the role of a government can be useful. The 'learning by doing' schemes under 'on the job training' and internships can be supported by governments, a practice that is common in scientific world. Technological learning should not be a one time goal, it is an ongoing process, it is a life long learning. So, mastering should lead to improvement, and more improvement with time. This should be implemented as horizontal as possible and as diverse as possible.

There are challenges but they can be mitigated to some extent. The greatest challenge is that developing countries rarely have a technology policy. They dont seem to know that there is something like technological learning. Probably because there are very few firms or firms that still use old, resource intensive technologies and lack both skills and finance to upgrade that technology. As a result, poor countries simply abandon technological learning.

It is also quite common that governments try to bring policies without checking its feasibility, without knowing if it would also sustain. When there is no incentive to learn and acquire, sustainability is questionable. This is why, if governments are not capable in this matter, they should at least get the fundamentals right, that means allowing market forces to allocate resources, creating an environment of competition in technology, and installing powerful institutions that are able to guide the process of learning. Only then, both the accumulation of human and physical capital is possible. Hence, in order to get one step ahead, if governments face financial constraints, they should avoid social goals in the first place, like fighting inequality. Of course inequality is bad but what will happen if the society is perfectly equal and what after that ? Fighting inequality should only be the means to prosperity, not the destination in itself. It is better that the society is unequal where one person has 100$ and another 40 instead of both of them having 20-20. Why I give this example is only to tell that you have to make hard choices, what you want to achieve this year or within this frame. Focusing on technology will generate greater goods. So, developing countries should not abandon technological policies for fighting social problems. To realise the goal of technological learning, social goals should be abandoned because governments cannot do many things at a time. They should make technological catch up their strategic goal which they want to fulfill within a given time frame. They should design science and technology policy ( which most countries in the world lack ). They should support firms to acquire technology, by financial support, financial incentives, tax breaks for imports etc. they should promote industrial linkages. they should act as a forum to bring industries work together ( though not against the others ). They should establish a culture of technological sharing through market, like a trade fair, they should establish research based universities instead of purely theoretical ones. These are the few points that were brain stormed how a country can acquire technological learning. Moreover, learning from others is a key. Places that do have technological learning and science and technology policy should be observed closely. Only then a rapid catch up in terms of development will be possible.