Session
Sustainability & Environment
Existing and New Technologies as Climate Risks
UNESCO
- Event Chair: Doris Mwikali, RCRC Climate Center Youth Advisory Group; National Youth Climate Action Program Lead; Youth Leader to High Level Steering Committee, UNESCO (Africa)
- Academia: Ingrid Volkmer, Director of International Digital Policy Lab; Professor of Digital Communication and Globalization, University of Melbourne (Global, Europe, Pacific)
- International Organization: Bosen Lily Liu, Expert Group Leader of Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Efficiency Project, ITU; Head of Partnership and UN Liaison, UNESCO IESALC. (Global, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean)
Event Chair: Doris Mwikali, RCRC Climate Center Youth Advisory Group; National Youth Climate Action Program Lead; Youth Leader to High Level Steering Committee, UNESCO (Africa)
Invited Speakers
- Public sector: Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General, Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency, Nigeria (Africa)
- Private sector: Delegate from Google, United States (North America and Europe)
- Academia: Ingrid Volkmer, Director of International Digital Policy Lab; Professor of Digital Communication and Globalization, University of Melbourne (Global, Europe, Pacific)
- International Organization: Bosen Lily Liu, Expert Group Leader of Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Efficiency Project, ITU; Head of Partnership and UN Liaison, UNESCO IESALC. (Global, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean)
- Youth leader: Okan Dursun, Founder of Twin Science, Youth Leader for Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Office of Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth (Middle East)
Doris Mwikali: [email protected]
Bosen Lily Liu: [email protected]
Ingrid Volkmer: [email protected]
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
12. Responsible Production and Consumption
13. Climate Action
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Targets: Under the framework of "futurism approach" to bring concrete changes in environment and sustainability, questions on Eco-friendly Policy System for AI and Emerging Technologies will be shaped as:
- What policies are working and can be improved?
- What policies should be intervened immediately or removed?
- What need to be invented from scratch for an eco-friendly policy system for AI and emerging technologies?
Such questions, depending on the expertise, will be addressed in relation to SDG 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 17.
The event will be in the form of Roundtable, aiming to engage wider audiences into the understanding, thinking, and actionable tools of a establishing a foundation for a sustainable future through creating an eco-friendly Policy System for AI and emerging Technologies. The interactive engagements are arranged by two tracks of guiding questions.
Questions for all participants to are at micro levels, link individual behaviors to the topic of Eco-friendly AI and Emerging Technologies, such as top three technology they use, the stage of technology they consider most impactful to the environmental, envision of future system for technologies, and role play.
Questions for speakers are at macro level, inviting technology stakeholders to reflect through their work on how to systematically mobilize the "futurism approach" to establish an Eco-friendly Policy System for AI and Emerging Technologies with the three policy questions and "What can I bring on the table to support eco-friendly AI and emerging technologies"?
English
We live in an ecosystem that we define for ourselves. While AI can be ‘for good,’ discussions are needed across the Global North and South to identify the policy foundations that are needed for AI and other digital technologies to ‘be good,’ within a sustainable digital world society?
Bringing together different AI stakeholders of industries, academia, public sectors, international organizations, emerging generations, and wider audiences from the ecosystem of sustainable development, this workshop encourages grounded, contextualized, and innovative solutions on AI policies that can be effective to accommodate different countries, regions, and communities on better positioning AI as an eco-friendly contribution to the society. While AI is generally being used as an example of emerging technologies, the workshop extends its discussions to other forms of emerging technologies, wherever the contexts fit.
Contributing to the Roundtable, a kick-off presentation reflecting the Report on “AI, emerging Technologies, and Environmental Efficiency: A Baseline Study among International digital Policymakers” is arranged to share findings from the study that includes scoping exercises of different regions around the world, represented by 20+ countries, to further understand multiple national policy debates around broader technology sectors, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability as well as to provide policy analysis to act on designing a system to support eco-friendly AI.
Following the presentation, the multistakeholder discussion aims to address AI and Environment Policy with multi-dimensional factors, including discursive, relativistic, contextual, and interdependent dimensions from communal to global levels, sharing the differences among the Global North and the Global South. To further promote solidarity and support consensus-making to reach Agenda 2030, young leaders, representing current and future generations, play a key role in chairing the session and concluding the workshop with collective call-to-actions on creating eco-friendly AI policy system from youths around the world.
Two main outcomes will be expected out of the Roundtable.
First, a Global Mapping exercise will be launched through the different stakeholder groups represented at the Roundtable to conduct a baseline study on the current situation of digital policy for each stakeholder in identified national contexts.
Second, a series of toolkits and advocacy documents – Guidelines to Establish Eco-friendly Policy System for AI and Emerging Technologies – will be created based on the call-to-actions from different sectors.
The Roundtable has been designed with interactive engagements for both on-site and online participants, including Menti, poll, and speaking opportunities. Activities, guided by questions are for participants to inspire thinking through their own experiences in relation to a bigger world problem brought in by speakers’ experiences who have worked on the specific field. We have assigned moderator for both on-site and online to engage everyone.