Technology and its value at the Bottom of the Pyramid

At different stages of development, technology can contribute to satisfying the requirements of specific markets. This paper is based on the concept of “Bottom of the Pyramid” proposed by Prahalad, where four thousand million of poor people are located and the traditional welfare approach has not brought effective solutions. It is necessary to find an alternative solution to actively involve the poorest socio-economic group, by means of innovation, access and availability of goods and services oriented to them. This paper aims to analyze technologies that allow manufacturing of products for the “Bottom of the Pyramid”, establishing whether there are differences compared with other technologies. As Technology Valuation is a key function of Technology Management, a proposal is showed about the valuation of those technologies, according with their stage at the technological life cycle; this proposal is supported on biological elements and oriented toward the complementation of the Valuation topic by considering widely characteristics of technologies and their context. It is concluded that technologies at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” are specific and require a particular management that include particular processes and methods of technological valuation, trying a better inclusion of knowledge integrated to technologies.