ITeG-Lecture: "The Design of Just Sustainability: IT and The Sustainable Development Goals"

In the ITeG lecture series "Digital Societies - a Design Challenge", Prof. Dr. Christoph Becker will provide insights on "The Design of Just Sustainability: IT and The Sustainable Development Goals".

He is Associate Professor of Information and a member of the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the design of just and sustainable information technology. As Director of the Digital Curation Institute at the University of Toronto, he brings together graduate students, appointed fellows, faculty colleagues and partners to conduct research at the intersection of sustainability, information technology, digital curation and systems design. As co-founder of the Karlskrona Initiative for Sustainability Design, he advocates an interdisciplinary approach to software systems research and practice. He is convinced that in order to build lasting positive change through information technology, we must better understand the social and psychological factors of systems design practice, and we need to examine the norms and assumptions that underpin computer science.

His work is supported by grants from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund. It has previously been funded by the European Commission and by agencies in Germany and Austria. Before joining the University of Toronto, he developed and coordinated international consortia of universities, cultural heritage organizations and commercial partners, consulted for the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and created award-winning decision support tools for digital curation. He received his doctorate in computer science from Vienna University of Technology in 2010.

This lecture is organised in cooperation with the project group "Sustainable Intelligence - Intelligent Sustainability" of the Hessian Centre Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI).

Summary of his presentation:

We urgently need to transform our societies to address the climate crisis. Information Technology can play an important role in doing this. Current practice of IT development, however, has a conflicted relationship with environmental sustainability and social justice. This talk gives an overview of the role of IT in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, shows some promising opportunities, and then asks if IT is ready to live up to its promise.

The lectures take place online (via Zoom). To join the Zoom meeting, please find the Zoom link and meeting ID on the following website: www.uni-kassel.de/go/iteg-lectures