ABSTRACT
The conclusion chapter presents an overview of key concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. When in the 1950s the former colonial powers started to give development aid to countries in the global South, technology became an important focus area. Modernization and technology transfer are the essential ingredients of economic development and progress. It proposed that understanding the relation between human capabilities and technical artefacts requires an iterative movement between 'zooming in' on the details of design and 'zooming out' to see the socio-technical embedding of technologies. The capability approach is a 'framework of thought' that cannot be straight forwardly operationalized in one single way. The aim of design is then to contribute to the expansion of these capabilities, to which refers as 'design for capabilities' or 'capability sensitive design'. The chapter discusses how technical artefacts need to be properly embedded in the surrounding socio-technical networks or structures in order to have the intended effect on individual capabilities.
