Material Innovations

Note from the Prof. / Blog Editor:

Many countries in what was formerly called the “developing world” have undergone radical shifts since the end of the Cold War and the rise of a highly networked global economy. Many of these countries are now referred to as “Emerging Economies” in the popular and business press, because neither “Third World” nor “Developing Countries” really fit. (Global South seems more neutral but is still binary and loaded. And given recent economic and environmental spasms, it may be that we are all Emerging Economies now.)

In 2008 I was a co-author of the Emerging Economy Report, for the Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS), a design innovation company located in India.

In the report, we defined Emerging Economies as those ‘regions of the world that are experiencing rapid informationalization under conditions of limited or partial industrialization. ‘

Also see Wikipedia: It appears that emerging markets lie at the intersection of non-traditional user behavior, the rise of new user groups and community adoption of products and services, and innovations in product technologies and platforms.