As the impact of the financial crisis spreads worldwide, it has become a top priority of various countries, international institutions, entrepreneurs and scholars to find innovative and creative ways to face this challenge. As Hazel Henderson (2002) has pointed out, “the world has not fallen into a financial crisis, but fundamentally fell into a crisis of development paradigm.” We need to reflect seriously on this paradigm and rethink of the social and economic models and cultural values for meeting the challenges (...) of this crisis. The paper introduces key issues of development within a global context, and explores the shift of the value system from hard technology centered to soft technology-based future direction of human development. (shrink)