If you ask any student passing out from the education system of West Bengal to define technology, 9 out of 10 would use definitions found in J Bronowski’s piece which is a part of the syllabus. Here is a definition that I like.

This post started from idle flipping through TV channels. I have this odd (and often annoying) habit of rapidly flipping through the channels, as a result the mishmash of images tend to form a chaotic blur. A few days back I was indulging in the same when I chanced upon some channel where Shobhaa De (I am sure there is one ‘a’ too many that I have put in !) was chatting with Sam Pitroda. At that particular moment in time the talk had veered to “Technology and India” when Sam had made an insightful observation. According to most “technology” is seen as something as elitist, glamorous and sexy. In fact in its simplest form “technology is a problem solver”. And that is exactly what it is.

In its simplest forms Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are problem solvers. These technologies provide the toolkits which attempt to successfully address and resolve the everyday problems. ICTs based on FLOSS are important in 2 aspects. They integrate the blue-sky vision as well as the ground level real world. Existing between these two paradigms is difficult and perhaps this is one of the reasons why FLOSS-ICT projects are more often than not addressing the grander aspects of the world vision.