On technology transfer

The first allusions of “Technology Transfer”, as it is aimed in this paper, may be traced back in the very early history of human beings in Palaeolithic Ages when they first started to learn from their surroundings. It has been changed during the history very diversely. Using different methods and tools, technology in general and technology transfer in particular has changed and become a subject of extensive debates during the recent years. Today, many organisations, universities and even governments have “Technology Transfer” departments or offices which devote extensive resources to finding the research results of the possible mercantile interests and developing overall strategies for how to take advantages of them. Focusing on architecture and building construction, this article will attempt to raise the issue from a general point of view. As the very main objective, to help to find out where we are at, considering the facilities and restrictions, this article will open the gates and draw an entire picture of the very recently emerging concept of “Technology Transfer”. Then to establish a basis for the issue to get started contemplatively and fundamentally, it will point at the clues and will leave the routes open for further studies. Thus aiming the fore-mentioned objectives, first of all, having a brief survey on the terms definition as a general view, this piece of writing, attempts to commit a very brief survey on possible methods of technology transfer. In this stage it will draw a perspective of the different concepts of “Technology Transfer” historically and geographically. Carrying them out into internal and external ones, subsequently, it will attempt to have a survey on the factors which are involved in the issue of “Technology Transfer” primarily in the “Synchronic” pattern of it. In this stage we will focus on the potentials it may provide, facilities and restrictions in its development process and requirements for it, both in the technology origins and its destinations. And finally, summarising the outcomes it will try to present some preliminaries for “Technology Transfer” internationally. Technology transfer, today, deeply depends on both the technology which is going to be transferred, in particular, and the technology of this transfer procedure itself, in general. The new methods which are being invented and applied in education and communication, on one hand, and complicated and sophisticated emerging approaches to manufacturing and production, on the other hand, make this reciprocal relationship inevitable. So what does “Technology Transfer” really mean? …‘Transfer’ means delivering something from one point to another one or as “Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English” suggests: “To move from one place to another; or to move something from one place to another…” This implicitly means that different bases of containing the content (technology) should exist for flowing it from one station to the other. In other words there should be a ‘source’ or ‘origin’ as a producer or holder with a higher level of technology and a ‘destination’ or ‘termination’ as a consumer or an in-need of technology; holding a lower level of it. “Technology” is application of knowledge and sciences to the practical aspects of life: “Technology may be defined as the systematic study of techniques for making and doing things. The term itself, a combination of the Greek techne, “art, craft,” with logos, “word, speech,” meant in Greece a discourse on the arts, both fine and applied. When it first appeared in English in the 17th century, it was used to mean a discussion of the applied arts only, and gradually these “arts” themselves came to be the object of designation…” (Encyclopaedia-Britannica 1985)… Later on, as explained before, concepts of “Technology Transfer” are going to be considered and then the problems and possibilities in this mainstream will be disputed. As a general conclusion, “Technology Transfer” is a very seminal necessity of our times and should be regarded very deeply as a subtle lifetime programme by developing countries. The issue cannot be prescribed as a blanket statement but needs to be contemplated and revised to get localized and fit the particular regional contexts, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and to suit the geopolitical and economical potentials of its source and its destination.