Tech4People: Sustainable and Efficient Transfer of Space Technology to Aid Communities in Need of Help

Paper number

IAC-09.E5.1.9

Author

Mr. Jorge Fuentes, Tech4People, Spain

Coauthor

Mr. Jan Walter Schroeder, Astrinova, Germany

Year

2009

Abstract

Since the beginning of the space era, space professionals and enthusiasts have defended passionately the outcomes and importance of the space endeavour for society. Besides the direct use of space science and applications, technology transfer becomes a major player in this discussion. While technology transfer from space activities led to a great number of advances in other industries and its technologies formed the basis of new commercial products or services, a gap is identified when it comes to make these technologies available to communities in need of help which do not have the means to access them. A scarce number of initiatives tackle this problem even when these technologies, products and services are crucial to the development and progress of such communities.

{\it Tech4People} is a non-profit private initiative to gather a community in which individuals and organisations can team up with the aim of making technology available, understandable and sustainable to aid communities of people in need of help around the world and improve their living conditions and well-being.

A non-profit initiative can receive donations from individuals, governments, companies and other institutions. These donations do not need to be necessarily in money but can also be in intellectual property, hours of work, assistance, contacts, knowledge or other in-kind transfers. {\it Tech4People} is intended to identify needs in communities with the help of NGOs or institutions with experience in such community and use technologies donated by agencies, research institutions or companies to solve their needs with the support of volunteers.

In this paper it is presented how non-profit initiatives such as {\it Tech4People} can give a new effective and efficient approach to the problem of making space technologies available to communities in need of help and how the technology transfer life cycle has to be designed to ensure a sustainable consistency of the same. In order to proof this concept, many aspects of the feasibility of such initiatives are studied in detail. Besides the presentation of the organisation methodology and the financial model, a valuation of ethical and legal aspects, such as intellectual property management, is discussed.


Keywords: {\it Tech4People}, technology transfer, non-profit, space technologies, communities in need. 

Abstract document

IAC-09.E5.1.9.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-09.E5.1.9.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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