Technology underpins human development. We need it to provide the very basics of a minimum standard of life – food, water, shelter, health and education. But a significant proportion of the world’s population do not have these basics today. And whilst a fifth of the world’s population lacks access to technologies fundamental to a basic standard of living, unfettered use of technology by those who have it brings its own problems – including pollution, global warming and threats to the sustainable future of humanity. So why are we so slow to address these issues? Why is it that the drivers of innovation mean we are more likely to see research into a cure for male baldness than a malaria vaccine or into methods for extracting shale gas as opposed to solutions to store renewable energy?
We need to rethink the purpose of our technological endeavour and how we provide access to and govern the use of technology today.
We need to retool – to change the alignment of our innovation systems to deliver technology that is socially useful and addresses the key challenges of poverty and environmental sustainability.
Above all, our relationship with technology needs a reboot. We need a different frame of reference – Technology Justice – to provide a radically different approach to our oversight and governance of the development and use of technology.
Rethink, Retool, Reboot addresses vital questions regarding the future of our world and the people living in it. It should be read by academics, students, activists and all those interested in international development and the environment.

Prelims [Acronyms| Preface| Introduction
Part 1 – Rethink
Chapter 1 - Defining Technology and Technology Justice
What is Technology?
Technology Justice
Chapter 2 - Technology Justice and Access to basic services
Justice as Fairness
The light bulb - will it ever catch on? (Access to energy services)
The tap – a technology whose time has finally come? (access to water and sanitation services)
Critical yet unavailable – access to Essential Medicines
Chapter 3 Technology Justice and Access to knowledge
Feeding the world – why the smallholder farmers need more support to access to technical knowledge
The digital divide
Conclusions - Technology Justice and Access
Chapter 4 – Technology justice and use.
Justice as compromise
Industrialised agriculture and biodiversity loss
Energy security and climate change
The demise of antibiotics and antimicrobials – a return dark ages for medicine?
Technology justice and use
Chapter 5 Rethinking Technology Access and Use
Part 2 – Retool
Chapter 6 – The link between technological innovation and economic development
Justice as a fair space for innovation
Technological innovation in neo classical economic growth models
The innovations systems approach
Innovations systems and developing economies – insights and problems
Chapter 7 – Technology Justice and Innovation Systems in Practice
Justice and the management of risk in technology innovation
Justice and the shaping of the purpose of technology innovation
Chapter 8: Intellectual property rights: part of the solution or part of the problem?
Why patent?
Do patents encourage innovation?
TRIPs, patents and the negative impacts on developing countries
Patents and other asymmetries of power.
Alternatives to the existing patent system
Where next?
Chapter 9: Recognizing the Role of the State in Effective Innovation Systems
Venture capital and the valley of death – the case of the energy sector
Recognising reality – governments engage in entrepreneurial activity.
Changing the narrative – rebalancing expectations of the roles public and private sectors play
Chapter 10 – Re-tooling: making technology innovation work for people and planet
The need to re-tool
Responsible Research and Innovation – an emerging approach to governance?
Inclusive innovation – bringing in voices of the marginalised
Learning from the open source movement
Part 3 - Reboot
Chapter 11 – Reimagining technology as if people and planet mattered
The need to reboot our relationship with technology
Rebooting access – priorities and opportunities for change
Rebooting use – priorities and opportunities for change
Rebooting innovation – priorities and opportunities for change
Technology as if people and planet mattered
Back Matter [Epilogue – Is Small Beautiful?| Appendix 1: Failures to adhere to the precautionary principle| Appendix 2 – List of diseases defined as ‘neglected’ in GFINDER 2011| Bibliography]

Simon Trace
Simon Trace is an international development consultant with over 30 years working in the field of international development, with a particular emphasis on technology in relation to energy, water, food and natural resource management. He was formerly the CEO of Practical Action.