Technology in Our Daily Lives

1Technology is all around you

Technology means the tools and machines people invent to solve problems and make work easier. Look around you:

• At home: a mobile phone, a radio, a television and its remote control, a fan, a solar lamp, and in some homes a washing machine or a microwave oven.
• At school: laptops for Scratch and Turtle Blocks, a projector, a calculator.
• In the community: mobile money on phones, prepaid electricity meters, and IremboGov, where families can apply and pay for government services online instead of queuing at an office.

2What makes a technology "emerging"?

An emerging technology is a new technology that is still growing and improving, and is just beginning to change the way people live. Emerging technologies usually:

1. are new, or new to a place;
2. change and improve fast, year after year;
3. could have a big effect on health, learning, work or safety;
4. are not yet used by everyone;
5. still have unknowns: we are still learning about their risks and the best rules for using them.

A technology does not stay emerging for ever. In the early 2000s mobile phones were an emerging technology in Rwanda. Today most families have one, so phones are now an everyday technology. Drones, robots, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are emerging now.

3Drones that save lives

A drone is an aircraft with no pilot on board. Rwanda was the first country in the world to use drones to deliver blood across a whole country. The company Zipline started flying in October 2016 from a centre at Muhanga, under an agreement with the Government of Rwanda. A second centre opened near Kayonza in December 2018, and deliveries grew to include vaccines and other medicines.

This is how a delivery works:

1. A health worker orders blood or medicine by phone.
2. Workers at the centre pack it in a box with a paper parachute and put it in a drone.
3. A catapult launches the drone into the air. It flies by itself along a planned route, while a person at the centre watches every flight on a screen.
4. Over the health centre, the drone drops the box. The parachute lands it in a small zone about 5 metres across.
5. The drone flies home and is caught by a wire, then gets a fresh battery for the next trip.

Why use a drone? Rwanda has many hills, and some roads are long and winding, so a drone flying straight through the air is often much faster than a car. A study published in 2022 found that drone deliveries of blood in Rwanda were 61% faster, and that 67% fewer blood units expired (went to waste) in health facilities.

4Robots that help people

A robot is a machine that can move and do tasks, controlled by a computer program. Most robots do not look like people at all; they are built for one job.

• Factories: robot arms weld metal and lift pieces that are too hot or too heavy for people.
• Homes: some robots vacuum floors or cut grass by themselves.
• Hospitals: a few robots help doctors do operations with very small tools.
• Dangerous places: robots can search for landmines or explore other planets. If something goes wrong, a robot is damaged instead of a person being hurt.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rwanda's health workers used robots at treatment centres to check patients' temperatures and carry messages, so nurses did not need to go near sick patients so often.

5How new technology helps us

Try it yourself

Think first, then check your answers in the Answers list below.

1. Which is an emerging technology in Rwanda today: a radio or a delivery drone?
2. Name two things that Zipline drones deliver.
3. Why can a drone often reach a health centre in the hills faster than a car?
4. Mugisha's mother paid for a government service on Irembo from home. Which area of life did technology help: health, education or services?
5. Give one job a robot can do that is too dangerous for a person.

Answers

1. The delivery drone. Radios have been used by almost every family for many years, so they are not emerging.
2. Any two of: blood, vaccines, medicines.
3. It flies straight through the air over the hills, instead of following long, winding or slow roads.
4. Services (communication and government services). She saved a journey and a queue.
5. For example: searching for landmines, lifting very hot metal in a factory, or exploring another planet.