In the different areas of contemporary life, people often talk about technology, although with different meanings. Perhaps it’s worth noticing the fact that it doesn’t refer only to artefacts or equipment, but the way something is made or produced, and the way materials and productive factors are combined. In general, it relates to a group of knowledge put together to solve concrete problems, to generate incomes, and to attend social or environmental issues, among others.

Humanity has always used its knowledge, obtained by various ways, to solve practical problems. The difference of our era lays on the speed with which new knowledge is generated and its application to daily life; the increasing predominance of science and technology in the wealth’s creation, and the needs’ satisfaction.

The technological change has accelerated after World War II, since the electronic revolution and the pharmaceutical advance. Because of this, public and private entities dedicate funds and resources to knowledge production in research centers, universities, experimental labs and companies, and its posterior distribution.

Likewise, it’s important to highlight that technology isn’t only a matter of super automatized equipment. When a small company develops a way to reach new clients, it has also develop a technology, i.e. it has innovated.

This isn’t neither a matter of rich countries. On the contrary, new technologies development is a way to overcome underdevelopment, as many countries have managed to do, even small ones. New technologies development is not an exclusive matter of big resourceful countries, quite the opposite, it’s relevant for all.

Cuba’s challenge is that, despite there has been some breakthroughs in areas that facilitate technological development; it’s not enough to unleash the potential formed in its workforce, because of reasons related to the lack of resources, but even more with the incentives linked to these technologies creation, and the appropriation of generated incomes.

Yes, because technology is not a purely technical matter, but also a social relationship. The social-economic environment and a society’s game-rules are closely linked with its capacity to use active and efficiently science and technology to solve concrete problems and to create long lasting wellbeing.

What has happened in the Greater Antilles in the last seven years confirms the thesis that plenty can be created, with relatively few resources, and that it doesn’t have to happen only in the public sector. It has been validated the fact that people’s creative talent, enhanced by an environment that generates the proper incentives, is capable of unleashing a technological development of great caliber, that positively reflects on the country’s economic and social development. That’s what it’s all about.

To highlight:

CREATIVE TALENT + INCENTIVES = TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

New technologies development is a way to overcome underdevelopment.

Cuba’s challenge is that, despite there has been some breakthroughs in areas that facilitate technological development; it’s not enough to unleash its workforce’s potential.

Cuba’s great challenge is that, despite there has been some breakthroughs in areas that facilitate technological development; it’s not enough to unleash the potential formed in its workforce