Technology Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development

This book discusses the need for entrepreneurship for sustainable development from the perspective of Asia, the fastest growing region in the world. The world is now witnessing a spectacular rise of technology entrepreneurship, involving mobile phones, artificial intelligence, geospatial information systems and social media. On the other hand, governments all over the world, particularly those in low and medium income countries, are facing severe resource constraints in developing the livelihood and well-being of citizens. Although many non-government organizations (NGOs) have worked on various development projects in a number of social sectors such as health, education, disabilities, poverty alleviation and environment, there is still substantial scope for technological innovation, including more efficient, effective and user-friendly solutions in different parts of the world. This book is organized into 2 parts and consists of 17 chapters. The first part explores education and well-being, and the second part discusses the climate, environment and disaster management.

Pradeep Ray is the founder and director of the Center For Entrepreneurship (CFE) at the University of Michigan–Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. This centre has been a leading international entrepreneurship educational institute in China and Asia through the minor it offers in entrepreneurship for engineering students in collaboration with industry and international organisations, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), partner institutions and the Yunus Centre, Bangladesh. Dr. Ray is currently leading research on social entrepreneurship, including universal healthcare based on UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) through public–private partnerships. He has been leading initiatives on technology entrepreneurship for sustainable development in Asia through collaborative projects on mobile health and healthy ageing involving more than 50 researchers from about 15 countries. These projects led to the edited book Mobile Technologies for DeliveringHealthcare in Remote, Rural or Developing Regions (IET Press, London, 2020) edited by Dr. Ray and others. Previously, he was the founder and director for 10 years at the Asia-Pacific Ubiquitous Healthcare Research Centre (APuHC) of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia, which was designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre on eHealth in 2013. He is the founder of IEEE Healthcom, premier international conferences on eHealth, which have been held annually since 1999.

Rajib Shaw is a professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance in Keio University, Japan. He is also a senior fellow of the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan, and the chairperson of the Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) Asia and the Church World Service (CWS) Japan, two Japanese NGOs. He is also a co-founder of a Delhi (India)-based social entrepreneur startup, the Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA). Earlier, hewas the executive director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) and was a professor in Kyoto University. His expertise includes disaster governance, community-based disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, urban risk management, and disaster and environmental education. Professor Shaw was the chair of the United Nations Science Technology Advisory Group (STAG) for disaster risk reduction and currently is the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (ASTAAG). He is also the coordinating lead author (CLA) for the Asia chapter’s 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Progress in Disaster Science and series editor of a Springer book series on disaster risk reduction. Professor Shaw has published 51 books and over 400 academic papers and book chapters.