KeynotesICT4S 2022

Three keynote sessions are included in the program:

• Session A1: “Our Stories, our voices”: A feminist toolkit for digital justice in the urban margins, Professor Ayona Datta
• Session A2, Panel: The Role of Policymaking in Orienting ICT Towards Sustainability Goals, MSc. Narmine Abou Bakari, MSc. David de Francisco, Professor Andreas Goldthau
• Session A3: Creating Better Software by Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Senior Lecturer Kelly Blincoe

Professor Ayona Datta, University College London, UK

Title: “Our Stories, our voices”: A feminist toolkit for digital justice in the urban margins

Abstract: In this lecture, Ayona Datta will present a feminist toolkit as a pathway to digital justice in the urban margins. This is in a context where despite a digital revolution in the global south, young people living in low-income neighborhoods find themselves unable to benefit from top-down technological solutions – not least because these technologies do not reach them, but also because these technologies are often used by the state to surveil and further disempower them. In their project in New Delhi, Ayona and her research team focussed on the mobile phone as an interface between digital and urban realms, that could help women innovate through WhatsApp messages, selfies, poetry and podcasts to document and articulate their everyday struggles during the COVID crisis. The feminist toolkit that emerged from these interactions is a loose collection of mechanisms, instruments, and guidelines to push back against digital power and authority. The toolkit uses indigenous forms of expression and knowledge, by underlining the affective and resistant potential of data through the anger, joy, freedom and despair to create new forms of decentralised, fragmented and low-tech co-optations from below.

Bio: Ayona Datta is Professor of Human Geography in University College London. Her broad research interests are in postcolonial urbanism, smart cities, gender citizenship and regional futures. Her work is set in the ethos of co-production with grassroots communities using digital/mapping, visual and participatory research methods to develop and build gendered capacity in the digital and urban margins. Her research has been funded by European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, British Academy, ESRC, AHRC and SNSF among others. She received the Busk Medal from Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in 2019 for her work on smart cities in the global south.

ICT4S KEYNOTE PANEL: The Role of Policymaking in Orienting ICT Towards Sustainability Goals

Policymakers are deeply involved in steering the development of ICT towards sustainability goals. This policy keynote will include presentations on policymaking as it relates to Artificial Intelligence, Global Energy, and Digital Rights. The speakers will then engage in a roundtable discussion on cross-cutting issues.

The speakers of the panel are:

David de Francisco, Technical Advisor, State Secretariat for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Spain

Title: Green AI: problems and policies

Abstract: One of the strategic objectives in the development of the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Strategy is the sustainability of the AI solutions built by the Spanish industry. In this talk guidelines about the inclusion of sustainability and Green IT principles in the concrete initiatives implementing the aforementioned Strategy will be introduced, as well as the expected positive environmental effects of those initiatives.

Bio: David de Francisco holds an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Valladolid, an MSC in Information Technologies for the Public Administration from the University Menéndez Pelayo, and an MBA Executive from the EEN. He holds the PMP and PMI-ACP certifications in project management from the PMI. During his 15 years of experience in the private sector, he has led several R&D, product design, and software development initiatives, and collaborated in business development initiatives in big companies such as Telefónica R&D and Indra. He has participated in international European R&D projects from the FP6 and FP7 in the context of the semantic web, collaborating in several research papers. After joining the public administration in the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation he has been implementing policies within the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Strategy through the development of programs aimed at enhancing the adoption of AI and digital enabling technologies by the Spanish industry.

Andreas Goldthau, Director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, and the Franz Haniel Professor for Public Policy at the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social sciences at the University of Erfurt, Germany

Title: Energy justice, clean technology and the Global South

Abstract: Clean technologies and their rapid deployment are at the center of the energy transition. Yet, tech ownership is uneven, resting with few developed economics and China. Moreover, rare earth minerals and metals for clean tech come with environmental and social costs as their extraction puts lopsided strains on local communities mainly in developing nations. Finally, uneven transition patterns thanks may deepen the gap between low carbon leaders and laggards. The keynote will discuss these aspects from the perspective of and in light of a vivid normative debate on energy justice.

Bio: Andreas Goldthau is the Director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, and the Franz Haniel Professor for Public Policy at the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social sciences at the University of Erfurt. He is also Research Group Leader at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. Before joining the Willy Brandt School Professor Goldthau served as Professor in International Relations at Royal Holloway College, University of London and as Professor at Central European University’s School of Public Policy. He was a Marie Curie Senior Fellow with the Geopolitics of Energy Project at Harvard Kennedy School and an Adjunct Professor with John Hopkins’ MSc program in energy policy and climate. He also held postdoctoral appointments at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the RAND Corporation and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Prof. Goldthau is non-resident fellow with the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, the Global Public Policy Institute and the German Council on Foreign Relations, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Narmine Abou Bakari, Digital Rights Campaigner at the European Parliament

Title: Assessing the Ecological Impacts of Digital Technologies

Abstract: Biodiversity is under unparalleled attack, with the sixth mass extinction underway. In the Anthropocene era, the evidence that our “extractivist” industrial model and our “consuming” society disrupt the Earth’s natural cycles is indisputable. We need to take action for the people and the planet. Taking action implies deconstructing the notion that the digital world is light and dematerialised – “virtual”, “in the clouds” – and that it has no impact on the physical world. The digital revolution has brought about equally fundamental changes – be they ecological, social, economic, democratic or geopolitical. A systemic approach to change is fundamental. In order to make strong policy decisions for the future, Europe urgently needs to assess the ecological impact of digital technology and its contribution to the European Green Deal. This is the best way to ensure that digital advancement stays in line with the European Green Deal. This must be backed up by action in European legislation: we need environmental standards for digital technologies, networks and infrastructures for their entire life cycle and condition our digital strategic decisions to their cost/benefits in terms of environmental impact. A European approach is essential to achieving a green and sustainable digital economy that benefits the workers, consumers and the planet.

Bio: Narmine is a Digital Rights Campaigner for the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament. Prior to joining the European Parliament, Narmine has worked as a Legal Counsel with experience in intellectual property, privacy/data protection, and EU law. Narmine gained substantial experience as a digital consultant at Brunswick, working on digital and environmental policies. Narmine holds a Master’s Degree in Intellectual Property Law from Sciences Po Paris Law School and is an alumnus of the Karl-Franzens University in Graz (Austria) and Johann-Wolfgang University in Frankfurt/Main (Germany).

Dr. Kelly Blincoe, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Title: Creating Better Software by Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Abstract: Research has shown that diversity in software teams increases innovation and productivity and enables more user-friendly software products. Yet, the software industry continues to lack diversity across many facets. Given software’s importance to modern society, it is important that software is accessible and usable for the people who need it. Dr. Kelly Blincoe will discuss recent research on diversity, equity, and inclusion within software teams, potential barriers to inclusive software teams, and existing techniques to ensure more representative requirements are considered when creating software.

Bio: Kelly Blincoe is a Senior Lecturer of Software Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand in the Human Aspects of Software Engineering Lab (HASEL) in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering. Her research is mainly on the human and social aspects of software engineering. She takes a socio-technical perspective, considering the interaction between the social and technical aspects of software engineering. She serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, the Empirical Software Engineering Journal, and the Journal of Systems and Software. You can learn more about Kelly at https://kblincoe.github.io.