SHE panelist and presenter at transatlantic “Low-Tech Innovation” event

On April 21, 2022, SHE presented and participated as a panelist in a transatlantic discussion on “Low-Tech Innovation,” a virtual event hosted by the French Embassy in Washington, DC’s Science and Technology Service, “France Science,” to celebrate Earth Day.   Eight speakers from the US and France discussed the emerging and promising topic of “low-technologies”, with a panel at the crossroads of science and industry, in the fields of water, construction, energy and agriculture.

Part II of the discussion can be viewed on France Science’s YouTube page, with SHE’s 10-minute presentation starting at 7:30 min, and FAQs starting at 40 minutes.

The “France Science” webpage on the event explains the beauty of low-tech innovations such as simple thermal solar cookers: “Within an alternative approach to high-technology, low technologies support sobriety in consumption and production, and promote the development of simple, inexpensive, accessible and repairable tools that use locally available resources. Low technologies can also be found under the frame of “frugal innovations”, defined by the UNICEF Office for Innovation as “a term that refers to products or services born out of necessity and in contexts that happen to be limited in available resources”. This approach takes into account the social and environmental aspects along the supply chain, from cradle (sourcing) to grave (recycling), which also echoes the SDGs’ target on sustainable consumption and production. Strongly encouraging human creativity and bottom-up initiatives, it seeks to empower individuals at once, setting the stage for more resilient technical and political systems aligned with local know-hows, without putting emphasis on the commercial and marketing aspects of the products. Low-tech uses as much as possible technologies that are user-friendly and addresses the question of their necessity in responding to human needs while considering social issues, sustainability, resilience and material footprint. As Navi Radjou, co-author of the book Frugal Innovation (2015) puts it, three principles underpin this discipline: keep it simple ; do not reinvent the wheel ; think and act horizontally. Another perspective, from the French Low-Tech Lab, highlights the following characteristics for a product to be considered low-tech: useful, accessible, and sustainable.”