ifda dossier 74 - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Brazil: The Institute of Technology for the Citizen
The 1'1-C is a non-governnlent, non-party
and no-profit organization which aims to
channel alternative scientific and technical
know-how to meet social needs. It will bring
together scientists and technical specialists,
either individually or as representative of
institutions, in a multidisciplinary approach
with the following aims:
1. to develop, transfer and publicize proce-
dures with a scientific or technical basis
which entail decentralization, autonomy, and
low ecological and cultural impact, with
special emphasis on alternative or appropri-
ate lechiiologv;
2. to provide specializ,ed consultancy, techni-
cal findings. impact reports, monitoring,
statistics, diagnoses, assessments, studies and
strategic programs, so as to make hroader-
based information available to the general
public.
The 1TC is organized as follows: as a rule,
the technical activities - laboratory work,
research, developn~ent and studies - will be
done by the associated specialized institutions.
A permanent core of staff and equipment
at ITC headquarters will serve as an
operation centre for contacts, information
management and teleprocessing,documcntation
and information, as well as program
and project administration.
Activities planned
ITC was founded by a group of people who,
while still university students, began working
with institutions and communities com-
mitted to changing social conditions. Pre-
ferring social action to the mechanisms for
producing and transferring knowledge
favored by academic circles, they added the
dimension of interaction and participation
in social movements to their studies, re-
search, reflection and laboratory cxperi-
nients.
The creation of an institute of this kind is
an attempt to disengage from the academic
sphere, to ensure the flexibility needed for
linking up social demands with multidisciplinary
technical and scientific work, for
forming teams and arranging financing. etc,
so that, unhampered by bureaucracy, administrative
difficulties and the rules of
corporate conduct, they may generate
rcsponsive,effect ive teclinologicalopcrational
and socio-institution~il innovations.
By coordinating programmes and projects
which treat science and technology as means
to equip the public to solve its own pro-
blems - respecting ethical, cultural and
environmental values - it is hoped to create
a nucleus around which like-minded altcrna-
tive research and applied activities may
agglutinate and interact, to go beyond
traditional categories and throw into relict
a novel strategy, embodying a way of think-
ing which many sectors have yet to identify
as an option for social development.
ITC intends to achieve its objectives by
organizing services and activities, such as:
a network of contacts with science and
technology professionals and institutions;
programmes and projects for research,
development, transfer and implementation
in the field of alternative and appropriate
technology;
a citizen's scientific "counter information"
service (in form of consultancy. findings.
reports, publications, events, panel discussions,
exhibitions, workshops, etc):
a public data bank service for technical
consultancy.
Programmes and projects
A series of programmes and projects are
under way. These are some examples: