On commercial exploitation of indigenous technology in developing countries

Whereas the systems of innovation thinking seeks to bridge the gap between technology sources and commercial exploitation, however, the effectiveness of such conceptual constructs and the corresponding policy interventions remains a subject of intense discussion in both developed and developing countries. This paper contains a brief review of some of the factors that influence the commercialization of indigenous technologies from a developing country perspective. The discussion is focused on three examples of technologies arising out of natural advantages in a case study country. Drawing from our interviews with the role players that were involved, we identify the factors that respectively had the most limiting influence in terms of commercial exploitation of each of the indigenous technologies.