Technology and Innovation

TechInn - ISSN 2399-8571 - © ISTE Ltd

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This article summarises the contributions made by the research published in this special issue on the development of microbial bio-inputs as an alternative to synthetic chemical inputs in agriculture. In light of the environmental, health and geopolitical impacts of the agrochemical model that emerged from the Green Revolution, it identifies two distinct pathways. The first is based on the decentralised self-production of bio-inputs by farmers, small cooperatives and enterprises using local resources. Observed in Cuba, Cameroon and Cambodia, this approach promotes autonomy, technological sovereignty, cost reduction and socio-ecological intensification through local knowledge and community dynamics. The second pathway involves the industrialisation of bio-inputs by large companies, based on standardisation, economies of scale and integration into global value chains. This approach aims to make the existing agro-industrial model more sustainable. Bio-inputs, for which markets are growing rapidly, can thus support either the agro-industry or a more autonomous and locally-based agroecological transition. The article highlights the barriers and drivers for the widespread adoption of the self-production pathway: variability in outcomes, regulatory constraints, and labour and infrastructure requirements. It examines how innovation in bio-inputs challenges prospects for intensification linked to food security issues.

Enterprise Knowledge Capital plays a central role in innovation strategies and technological leadership. This is particularly evident in semiconductors, a systemic technology characterized by globally distributed yet highly concentrated capabilities, generating strategic dependencies and geopolitical tensions. This conceptual article examines how states and leading firms co-develop, protect and mobilize knowledge capital to secure critical technological capabilities, with TSMC illustrating this firm-state dialectic. We argue that the systemic nature of semiconductor innovation makes technological sovereignty through national self-sufficiency unrealistic. Friend-shoring therefore provides an instrument for territorializing critical capabilities within trusted ecosystems. We introduce “club techno-nationalism” to characterize the broader governance mode through which allied states, in coalition with leading firms, selectively organize technological interdependencies while restricting strategic rivals’ access to critical technologies. This inherently asymmetrical configuration makes technological sovereignty increasingly relational, combining domestic capabilities with secured access to complementary knowledge and technologies controlled by trusted partners.

The presence of the company Omega since 1923 in the Sanità’s neighborhood, close to the historical center of Naples, is a remnant of the many craftsmen active in the area throughout the 20th century. Still working as a glove’s supplier, the facto-ry has kept its functioning for a century: the manufacturing chain is divided into individual tasks, dispatched in several spots around the city. Some of the working steps are made in the company’s headquarters - an apartment-factory - while others are accomplished by specialized workers or home-based workers. The pairs of gloves travel from the headquarters to the location of the company’s employees. Despite the maintaining of an old-fashion tracking method (handwritten cards), communicating through the phone is now essential. On the one hand, the making process (cutting, embellishing, stitching, and finishing) seems identical since a century ago, and on the other hand, contemporary communication means have been included. This contribution focuses precisely on the impact of their immediacy. What difference does it make in the rela-tionship between the supplier and the buyer? What is the impact of a better and quicker connection between the different production sites on the everyday life of the company? Is the short-time characteristic of new communication means contra-dictory to the slow process of glove making? The ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, started in 2025, aims first at document-ing the trade of leather gloves manufacturing to point out its social and technical changes. The study also has a role to play in the valorization of this family business, which I am trying to attend as a leather accessories designer and producer. Be-ing simultaneously an anthropologist and a craftswoman, my presence in the fieldwork serves two purposes: social scienc-es research and professional collaborations in the field of Italian crafts. As a result of this double work, this paper offers, among other things, an insight into a mission given by the Neapolitan trade.

This article explores the potential of science fiction (SF) to serve as a heuristic and methodological tool for rethinking the transition toward decarbonized mobility. In response to the climate emergency and the requirement for carbon neutrality by 2050, this study posits that the reconfiguration of transport systems is not merely a matter of technical engineering, but requires a profound transformation of collective imaginaries. Furthermore, it highlights the specific techniques and creative works currently employed in ongoing research and urban planning projects. This article shows how science fiction can serve as a foundation for practical approaches such as design fiction, narrative foresight, and co-design, helping to open up discussion around plausible mobility futures. It highlights SF as a bridge between imagination, innovation, and public action in the reflection about transition toward decarbonized mobility.

The novel Les Orphelins de Naja is brimming with technological innovations, particularly regarding modes of transportation, communication, and interactions between Earth and other spatial dimensions. Science fiction being a powerful laboratory for future innovations, the plot of this novel reexamines the relationship between humanity and supposed habitable planets in the future. Our research therefore studies these regimes of interspatial relations as imagined by the fertile pen of Nathalie Le Gendre. Following the trend of panoptic and prospective theories, this article posits the plausibility and possibility of new forms of transportations and telecommunications between Earth and other spaces or exoplanets. These are innovations designed to inspire the giants of “Digital Capitalism” to make mental communication in space and tactile connections between the planets of our galaxy practical, all of this under the panoptic control of global authorities.

This article presents the LOTUS tool, developed by the RASSCAS laboratory at ISEN Méditerranée, for assessing the social and environmental impacts of technological projects. LOTUS is a 3-hour workshop aimed at devising solutions to reduce these impacts. The tool is based on the work of Kate Raworth and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Trials have shown that LOTUS has exceeded its initial objectives, making projects more acceptable and taking into account planetary limits and social needs. The tool is versatile and adaptable to different types of projects. The results underline the importance of taking social and environmental impacts into account in technology projects. LOTUS represents a significant advance in the responsible and sustainable design of technologies, and opens up future development prospects for more regenerative design.

This article offers an in-depth analysis of the interactions between economic intelligence (EI), artificial intelligence (AI), and territorial dynamics in the era of digital transformation. AI technologies—particularly generative AI—are profoundly reshaping the production, circulation, and valorization of strategic information, both within organizations and across territories. Building on academic work related to knowledge management and information governance, the study shows how territories can become experimental spaces for augmented collective intelligence, where AI contributes to strengthening competitiveness, innovation, and resilience. The article adopts an analytical and critical approach, examining the complementarity between algorithmic power and human judgment, as well as the conditions required for ethical and shared data governance.

The latitude and longitude geographic coordinates provided by Google Earth are affected by errors that suggest uncertainties in distance and route measurements. This study proposes improvement formulas to make geolocation data more accurate. In an approach that presents formulas for evaluating and improving uncertainties in distances produced by Google Earth, our results demonstrate that the uncertainties and errors in distances contained in measurements from Google Earth are tangible depending on the evaluation of short, long, or medium distances. The probability of errors in the coordinates provided by Google Earth is plus or minus (+/-) 2 meters. The distribution of errors as a function of distance shows that an error of +/- 3 m has only a 0.4% chance of being exceeded. This methodology takes into account the structure of the Earth’s globe: meridians, parallels, poles, the equator, hemispheres, and the Earth’s bumpy structure. These corrections help improve accuracy in applications that use geolocation as a means of optimizing services. Correcting errors from geographic coordinates using formulas that reduce errors would have an impact on geolocation in industries such as goods transportation, precision agriculture, and healthcare. While recognizing that geolocation offers significant benefits by transforming many fields, it raises some important questions regarding individual privacy.

Plants in the environment face constant stresses, either biotic or abiotic. These stresses can significantly reduce the productivity of important crops worldwide, with annual crop yield losses ranging from 25% to 50% of the total production. Biotic stress includes herbivores, pests and pathogens. Thus, plants have developed a multilayer defense system to prevent the problem of biotic stress which includes the constitutive (SAR) and induced defense system (ISR). The excessive use of synthetic chemicals has detrimental effects on the environment and human health, which discourages pesticide application in the agriculture sector. As a result, researchers worldwide have shifted their focus towards alternative eco-friendly strategies to prevent plant diseases. A variety of biological control agents are available for use. Currently, researchers are exploring the use of beneficial microorganisms as an eco-friendly strategy to control crop diseases. A range of bacterial genera and fungi have demonstrated great potential as biocontrol agents for various plant diseases. Apart from these, to date, researchers in biotechnology are exploring plant Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) and Induced Systemic Resistance (ISR), the role and mode of action against phytopathogens and plant stress. In this paper an effort has been made to describe the new biostimulants and natural elicitors made by biotechnology and nano technology in the last few years, as a new insight to the increase of SAR and ISR in plant defense systems.

Innovation in the medical and surgical fields seeks to optimize the quality of care delivered to patients. This study provides an overview of the new technologies that support this innovation in the field of orthopedics and traumatology and illustrates their application in the specific case of Nice University Hospital. It is based on a review of the literature and an interview with a university hospital research director focused on improving the care of patients with osteoarticular trauma. The results of this state-of-the-art review present the advantages and limitations of various technologies: modeling, simulation and three-dimensional (3D) printing, extended visualization, robotic and navigation systems, and internet and smartphone applications. Their integration into healthcare facilities and the healthcare ecosystem is discussed in relation to the concept of digital twins and criteria for human, organizational, and societal feasibility. This study contributes to the thinking of surgeons and their teams in developing their digital devices.