To start off Friday, February 12, at Lift16, we decided to look at innovation through the lens of sustainability in the session From Digital Transition to Ecological Resilience, with speakers from the USA, Netherlands, China and Switzerland.
The two major transitions of our time have much to say to one another. The ecological transition has a goal, but the path to get there remains unclear. The digital transition changes everything everyday, yet doesn't know into what. Can we put the transformative power of digital technology, practice and culture to work toward a profound change in our development model? Can we make the ecological transition as inviting, disruptive, exciting, - even addictive - as the digital transformation? Technology is part of our problem, under what conditions is it also part of the solution?
Laur Fisher & Daniel Kaplan - Introduction to From Digital Transition to Ecological Resilience
Laur Fisher, research scientist at MIT, project manager of Climate CoLab, attempting to crowdsource solutions to the world’s biggest problems, starting with climate change and Daniel Kaplan, founder and CEO of FING, introduce us to this first session of the Friday with the following questions: Why did we decide to explore the relationship between technological innovation and ecological resilience? How will it impact our businesses but also our personal lives in the near future?
Want to see the slides? Watch it on Klewel!
Lorenz M. Hilty - How to Align the Digital with the Ecological Transition
Lorenz M. Hilty, professor of informatics and sustainability at the University of Zurich, attempts to use the transformational power of digital technologies to support sustainable development. In this first talk of the session, Lorenz Hilty goes more in details into why technology needs to act fast to transform itself and its processes, using some of the latest analytical models to measure impact. He goes on and tell us how he envisions the future of truly sustainable technological innovation through 3 realistic examples.
A great way to start the subject on the right foot!
Want to see the slides? Watch it on Klewel!
Denis Slieker - Energy neutral: It’s easy when you turn things around
Denis Slieker, director at Qurrent, an energy supplier aiming at providing as few energy as possible, helps households to become energy neutral by connecting them with regional renewable energy projects. In this second talk of the session, Denis Slieker takes us along his personal and professional journey, from planting trees around the world to realizing the problem is more deeply ingrained in our economy. Taking action on this, he explains how his company is trying to change the status quo by providing as few energy as possible to its consumers.
Watch this excellant example of how to actively take a stand and impact climate change in a positive way, working both on the market level and the human level!
Want to see the slides? Watch it on Klewel!
David Li - E-Waste: an open source solution
David Li, co-founder of XinCheJian, China's first hackerspace, and Hacked Matter, is revolutionizing the way we treat e-waste through a worldwide Maker initiative. In this final Open Stage talk of the session, David Li reports back from his hometown Shenzhen, in China, where most of the world's electronics ends up to be dismantled and "recycled" for its gold. Though, in this very place, a revolution is brewing from the bottom up.
Listen to David tell us how makers in China are taking the lead in revolutionizing the way we treat e-waste and creating a circular economy.
Want to see the slides? Watch it on Klewel!
Find all pictures from this session on our Flickr page.
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