Top-down technology

In the top down technologies one starts from relatively coarse material (drug powder). The drug powder undergoes a diminution process until the desired size in the nanometer range is reached. All products being currently on the market are based on these top-down technologies. 

There are some very real organizational dilemmas to be resolved. Unfettered initiation from the middle could be chaotic. On the other hand, the complexity of modern organizations and the speed of response needed to keep abreast of market and technological change means that traditional top down styles of planning can no longer be effective - if they ever were. So leading from below the top may be essential for the future. 

So when the subject of extension has been determined, namely sustainable development, the method of extension has to be found. Top-down extension methods have failed. But how to get a bottom up or a right mix between top-down and bottom-up approaches In Northern Ghana the participatory technology development approach, as a mixture of bottom-up and top-down approaches, has shown fascinating results in pilot projects and shows great potential to boost sustainable development in rural areas. 

As different as primitive and modern technologies may seem, they both depend on a "top-down" approach to the manufacture of objects. It begins with a mass of trillions upon trillions of atoms and molecules and uses brute force to arrange those atoms and molecules into some desirable form. 

---