Nanotechnology and UNSDGs

When nanotechnology is mentioned, the crowd will surely be excited to find out what
nanotechnology is all about. Although nanotechnology has been around for decades, many of
us have no idea what nanotechnology is. Little did we know, nanotechnologies are already
surrounding us, in our food, in our clothing, in our cars and even in our own body. Scientists
swears on the scientifical marvel of nanotechnologies whereby it can be used for almost
everything from clothing to better sunscreen to even gene editing in our DNA.
Nanotechnology deals with particles at nanoscale with at least one dimension in less than
100nm in size which is literally a billionth of a meter. If you think a grain of sand is small,
well think deeper than that and much further. Even a virus is still considered big by nanoscale
standard. That is how small nanoparticles are. These nanoparticles will then be weaved
together to create nanomaterials which eventually will become nanoproducts.
Furthermore, this nanoparticles at nanoscale allows scientists to create and manipulate
matters in ways humans could not do before. Such development allows scientist to create
better and more robust inventions. For example, back in the 50s, sunscreen used to be gloopy
and thick in texture whereby if applied, it would create a thick white film over your skin,
hence why vintage movies with seaside scenes always had actors with white noses due to the
thick texture of the sunscreen back then. The ingredient which gave the white film texture
was zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. Both of these materials are great protection against the
UVA and UVB from the sun exposure. However, it has been a long time since we have seen
actors with white noses while filming seaside scenes in movies thanks to nanotechnology.
The development in nanotechnology allows scientists to alter the size of zinc oxide and
titanium dioxide to nanoscale, this let the current sunscreen sold in the market to have much
smoother finishes and texture. The white film that we had is long gone and nowadays,
sunscreen comes in various shapes and forms also thanks to nanotechnology. From liquid
form to spray on types, sunscreen have come a long way since its first invention all thanks to
nanotechnologies.
In addition, sunscreen is only one of many consumer products that have been touched
by the magnificent golden touch of nanotechnology. Other products such as smartphones are
being powered by chipset at nanoscale where MediaTek is currently leading the industry with
its 4nm chipset and other manufactures like Samsung, Apple and Qualcomm are already
following suit due to the advantage of having smaller chipsets like better performance while
being energy efficient. Whether we like it or not, nanotechnologies are around us and it has
been around for decades and is here to stay. However, although nanotechnologies have been
regarded as one of the greatest inventions in human history, there are deficiency when it
comes to regulation and oversight of nanotechnologies. Matter like environmental safety and
occupational hazard relating to nanotechnologies are pretty much absent as nanotechnologies
are still in its developing stage. For most countries, they do not even have any laws regulating
such activities on nanotechnologies. For countries that do have the regulations, the concern is,
is it enough? Other issue relating nanotechnologies is the parity of treatment between
countries. While rich countries are developing their own nanotechnologies, do poorer
countries need to sit idle while wondering when such advancement will even set foot in their
land. This is what United Nation is trying to avoid by introducing the Sustainable
Development Goals.

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

In the year 2000, countries from around the globe signed upon the Millennium
Development Goals with 8 targets to be achieved by the year 2015. The 8 targets among
other includes eradication of poverty and promoting gender equality. While the targets
seemed to be simple and comprehensive enough, only developed countries were participating
in trying to achieve the targets while the developing countries were losing interest in them.
By 2015, the Millennium Development Goals was due to be revised and leaders around the
world once again gathered to discuss on the issue. While the Millennium Development Goals
successfully reduced the number of people in poverty by half and decreased child morality by
45%, it still did not achieve its full potential and targets whereby countries were still
struggling for access to electricity and clean water and gender disparity was still alive and
kicking.
Additionally, world leaders including the Pope agreed to revise the Millennium
Development Goals and came out with the Sustainable Development Goals. The latter is the
expansion of the former with 17 targets to be achieved by 2030. The Sustainable
Development Goals is trying to tackle on the current world issues which includes climate
change, environmental preservation and achieving equality. The main theme of Sustainable
Development Goals is on inclusivity whereby no one is left behind in the current rate of
globalization. People of all ages regardless of genders, ethnicities, religions, and even sexual
orientations would come together and make the earth a better place for everyone including
the future generation. This is where sustainability comes to mind whereby our action
produces a big impact towards the fate of the future generation and a change towards a more
reliable and sustainable lifestyle is needed. Such changes include our energy source,
consumption and production, and life of other species. Nanotechnologies play an important
role in achieving these targets as the development could help in creating work, giving access
to better education, improving living conditions and enhancing medicinal efficacy.
Nanotechnologies and no poverty
Around the world, there are countries with scarcity of necessities like clean water and
reliable energy. These deficiencies resulted in deeper integration into poverty as they are
halted from receiving decent basic needs like a respectable human being. World leaders are
looking at nanotechnologies to aid the target to eradicate poverty once and for all.
Technologies in poorer countries, be it low-end or high-end technologies have always been a
luxury for them; thus, the involvement of nanotechnologies could provide a better and more
cost-efficient alternative to access to technologies. This is evidenced as there are 650 million
telephone users in the continent of Africa alone, this number of telephone user is higher than
the entire continent of Europe and America combined. Over the years, telephone especially
smart phones have been cheaper and better thanks to the development in nanotechnologies
widely available in the consumer market. Such increase in telephone usage opens up entire
new possibilities for the African as they gain access to the world beyond their fingertips.
What impossible before is finally possible thanks to smart phones such as access to education
and online business.
Among the early promises during the emergence of nanotechnologies were job
creation. This is indeed somewhat true as there is significant increase in the field of
nanoscience. The same can be said in nanoengineering whereby a 25% increase of
employment can be observed after the implementation of nanotechnologies in Iran. More and
more people are working in nanotechnology related fields especially in factories producing
nanoproducts for the consumer market. Although the researching and creation are handled by
high skilled worker like scientists, nanotechnology offers wide range of jobs at different skills
level such as manufacturing, sales, and distribution of the nanoproducts. This showed that
nanotechnology is not only creating jobs for the educated folks but also for the common
people as well. Also, nanotechnologies have improved agricultural activities by introducing
nanoproducts like nano-fertilizers and hydrogels. These agricultural nanoproducts increased
soil fertility and increase crops resistance against pests which resulted in increase in crops
production. Not only that, but nanotechnologies also reduce the period of crops maturity
which effectively increase the harvest period per year, from once every year for some crop
species to 3 times a year. Nanotechnology tools like robots and sensors helped in managing
the harvest at fraction of cost and time compared to traditional method. With the help of
machine learning and artificial intelligence, harvest cycle can be more sustainable and
frequent without exhausting the soil of its nutrients. This will help in achieving the targets of
Sustainable Development Goals especially on water and energy.

Nanotechnology and reduced inequalities

The term nano-divide could be defined as the disparities in treatment between the rich
and poor countries in relation to nanotechnologies. This nano-divide can be seen to widen the
technological and social gap between the rich and poor countries. This was the initial case
with nanotechnology as it can be seen to only benefit the rich countries due to the abundance
of resources, be it money or technology in richer countries which could aid in the
development of nanotechnologies. A few decades ago, poorer countries had been considered
inferior compared to the rest of the richer countries as they would be sitting idle and wait for
the welfare checks from their rich counterpart. Most of the time, they were given older
technologies disguised as their deserving welfare help from the world community. As
globalization is increasing rapidly over the years, these poorer countries are having harder
time to keep up with the development pace which resulted in the increase of nano-divide.
While nanotechnology in its initial years created a nano-divide, nanotechnology is also
gradually closing that very gap it created between the rich and poor countries.
Furthermore, there are social and economic differences between rich and poor
countries which directly related to advancement in science and technology. Thus, if poor
countries would want to achieve that advancement especially in nanotechnology, it must be
tuned to suit the local customs and circumstances although it is an imported technology. Take
the air-condition for example, while it is very useful in hotter climate regions, but its function
must be tweaked to suit the colder climate countries by adding heater. However, instead of
focusing on creating new nanoproducts that would only work exclusively in a region,
scientists should make use of a number of nanoproducts available in the market and modified
to suit the local needs. For example, fertilizers and pesticides always had bad reputation due
to its adverse effect to the environment and human health, thus scientists modified the
fertilizers and pesticides with the help of nanotechnology to suit the local soils. This
wonderful discovery aided the boost in agricultural activities around the globe especially for
poorer countries.
Moreover, nanotechnology should be incorporated into education and the
government. As nanotechnology is a fairly new and advanced field especially for poor
countries, a high skilled workforce is required to aid this development, and this is where the
education system comes in to fill in the gaps of high skilled workers in nanotechnology
industry. A small reform in the educational system to incorporate nanotechnology in its
syllabus is a must for countries to catch up with the fast pace of globalization. Government
on the other hand could provide some incentives to nanotechnology industry to develop in
their countries. Incentives such as grants, loans, reduced tax rates and subsidized
infrastructure could attract the nanotechnology industry. Such investments would be seen as a
long-term investment for the prosperity of technological advancement in the country. This
advancement could have beneficial effects to the country socially and economically such as
creation of jobs in nanotechnology industry, improvement of access to clean water and
reliable energy source, economic boost in the local raw materials industry and eventually
reduce the nano-divide between poor and rich countries.