The role and impact of technology in our personal and professional lives is increasing. Understanding how people shape technology and how technology shapes people's interactions with each other and with the natural world is important not only for those who research, develop and implement new technologies, but also for all individuals and organizations. that they should use these technologies in their work and development. personal lives.
Technology is not a neutral word. Different people will give it a different meaning depending on their point of view and context.
Members of the Faculty of Technology are no different, but for many years we have adopted a particular definition of technology that reflects our own goals and objectives:
The technology aims to understand how knowledge is creatively applied to organized tasks involving people and machines that serve enduring goals. This definition has three important aspects:
1. Technology means taking action to meet a human need, rather than just understanding how the natural world works, which is the goal of science. The invention of the microscope was motivated by the need to explore the world of the little one, beyond our unaided vision. This technological solution to an old problem, in turn, has given us a better understanding of how the world works, which has led to the development of more technologies.
2. It uses much more than scientific knowledge and includes values and facts, both practical and theoretical knowledge. The iPod is an example of how the physics of making a small device carrying so much music is combined with creative design to create an iconic, must-have accessory.
3. It involves organized ways of doing things. It encompasses the intentional and unintentional interactions between products (machines, devices, artefacts) and the people and systems that make them, use them, or are affected by various processes. A lot of people like to drink coffee, usually in a cafe. This coffee can come from trees that have been grown specifically for higher yields that support a small farmer and his family, but that require pesticides that were developed and manufactured in another country. The harvested coffee beans will be transported around the world, to be processed and packaged in packages which are distributed to stores that manufacture the coffee cup in a polystyrene cup which has been designed for this purpose, but which must be discarded and pier. early. Every choice we make is based on, and nurtures, a highly interdependent and powerful way of life, in which some have too much and others have little.
Technology is a practical profession in which people are required to have skills in several of the following areas: engineering, communication, design, development, innovation, management, manufacturing, modeling, and systems thinking. But technology also provides us with various products that can be used - for good or for evil or when the benefits are contested and, likewise, the processes involved in the production and use of technology mean that we should all have interest in knowing if it gives us a future for ourselves and for everyone else.
