Technology Catch Up

Greetings,

When I study our history captured through the works of Dr. John Henrik Clarke or the economic, psychologically, and politically development we need for liberation explained by Dr. Amos N. Wilson I quickly get a flash of ideas that would serve Afrikan folks well. Today let us talk about one called Technology Catch Up. The phrase describes a picture similar to a foot race in the street or the image of playing defense in football where you are tasked with catching up to an opponent. Very quickly you have to use intuition and skill to find that spot where the your challenger will end up. Once that spot is determined, your energy must be used to arrive at that point versus focusing on beating the other guy.

Now, where technology is concerned we are going to introduce a recent trend among diy (do it yourself) folks. This trend is a couple of years old but remains strong because of what I call Technology Catch Up, where each level of innovation brings about another level of innovation. That happens when a generation of people decide to catch up by meeting the current wave of innovation not where it is but where it will end up.

Which brings us to the new technology. In the world of printing we are experiencing a great surge of commercial ready idea-to-production type Technologies like 3D-Printing and our main focus in this article, the automation of machine tools like CNC (Computer Numerical Control) which is the type of machinery used in huge factories for building millions of products at record speeds. A company called Inventables is bringing such an advanced technology to the hands of everyday consumers who are inventors and engineers at heart through a software/hardware kit called Easel. (Video below will tell you more)

Now, these guys have been developing the design and effectiveness of the machine for years and have even created a successful kick starter campaign, received investors and a great number of supporters. But please do not underestimate the value of the time spent or the knowledge already acquired before taking on such a project.

In this particular case if we intend to be a part of this wave, then we must use the Technology Catch Up approach and met this wave where it will land, not where it currently is. So the advice from your Brother Jason by way of Just Right Technology is put on your engineering/ inventor cap and start coming up with ideas that  will use this technology as well create products through the software mentioned above in the video. Another possibility would be purchasing the equipment and allowing others to use it. I could go on forever but the point is looking at the entire picture will allow for a better plan of attack.