Technologies for Sustainable Development: A Way to Reduce Poverty?

Whilst scientific research can be crucial in guiding innovation and development throughout the world, it can be too detached from real world applications, particularly in developing and emerging countries. Technologies for Sustainable Development brings together the best 20 papers from the 2012 Conference of the EPFL-UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development with the aim to explore and discuss ways to link scientific research with development practices to assist practitioners and reply directly to social needs.

In order for technologies to be adopted it is not sufficient that they are low cost and affordable but also socially, culturally and environmentally accepted by the intended users. Technologies for Sustainable Development aims to explore and answer the following three questions:

• What is an appropriate technology?

• How can we ensure a sustainable, integrated development?

• What are the conditions for co-creation and transfer of such technologies?

Focusing on the importance of improving working relationships between stakeholders; researchers and decision-makers; between scientists and industrial sectors; between academics and the population; Technologies for Sustainable Development opens a dialogue necessary to create and implement the best solutions adapted to social demands.

Jean-Claude Bolay was appointed Director of Cooperation at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2001 and has headed what recently became the Cooperation & Development Center (CODEV) since 2005. A sociologist by training, he specialized in urban issues in Latin America, Asia and West Africa. He prepared his PhD in Political Sciences at El Colegio de Mexico, then at UC Berkeley, USA. Before joining EPFL in 1989, he worked for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) both in Switzerland and in Cameroon. He has carried out many international research projects in Vietnam and Latin American countries in particular, looking at social practices in urban societies, sustainable urban development and poverty reduction in developing countries. He was a scientific advisor and evaluator for the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research, the Belgian Universities’ Commission for Development and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among other institutions. At EPFL, he has directed postgraduate courses on development in Africa and India. In parallel to his position as Director of CODEV, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in 2005 in the Laboratory of Urban Sociology of the Natural, Architectural and Built Environment School.

Silvia Hostettler studied Tropical Environmental Science at the University of Aberdeen followed by a postgraduate course on development studies with the EPFL which took her to Burkina Faso for six months. Upon returning from Africa, she started working with IUCN – The World Conservation Union at IUCN headquarters in Gland. In 2001, she was recruited as Research Programme Coordinator at EPFL in the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South. At the same time, she fulfilled a mandate for backstopping regional workshops in Ethiopia, Kenya, Cuba, Bolivia, Nepal and Vietnam. In 2007, she obtained her PhD on land use change and internationalmigration in western Mexico. From 2008 to 2012 she was based in Bangalore, India as Executive Director of swissnex, a Swiss House for Science facilitating research collaboration between Switzerland and India. Since September 2012 she is Deputy Director of CODEV at EPFL. CODEV focuses on developing solutions for the most pressing world challenges through scientific research partnerships, innovative technology and education. Since 2007, CODEV also hosts the UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development. Her research interests include migration, livelihood strategies, development studies, watershed management, land use change and tropical forest ecology. She has written various articles and other scientific publications on these topics.

Eileen Hazboun is of Palestinian/Jordanian origin, born in the Sudan with extensive international exposure: living in Switzerland, Australia, the United States, countries of South East Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines) and the South Pacific (Solomon Islands, Vanuatu). Eileen has experience in human resources working with Ernst & Young in Los Angeles; PR/Communications with the World Business Council of Sustainable Development at the time of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil; fundraising and humanitarian aid with OCHA and the management of the global ticketing logistics and supply chain activities in IATA, prior to the implementation of electronic ticketing. Since January 2010, she has been working in CODEV as the Administrator for the UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development as well as the CAS in Management of Development Projects and the CAS in Disaster Risk Reduction. Eileen holds a BA in Humanities from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia and an MBA from the University of Geneva. Eileen is multi-lingual speaking English, French and Arabic.