How can we ensure technological innovations in our cities and societies are human centric? At conferences and workshops in Vienna, Brussels, Berlin and Leipzig I've been extrapolating this question.
Vienna Workshop on Digital Humanism
I participated in a two-day workshop on digital humanism hosted by the Faculty for Informatics at TU Vienna to explore issues that are arising and ways we can ensure technological transformation does not disregard societal goals and the quality or potentials of the human experience.
The international interdisciplinary program was mainly attended by Trans-Atlantic academics including computer scientists, social scientists, engineers, economists and historians. There were also representatives from government and industry. Key themes concerned the need for greater transparency and scrutiny of existing internet-based systems and their governance, the implications of the world wide web’s decentralised beginnings now transforming into concentrations of power and unequal global access, as well as ethical and legal challenges of big data and how it is affecting human rights and democracy.
The workshop culminated with attendees being invited to co-produce a manifesto for digital humanism. The manifesto will seek to inform current debates on technology ethics and provide conceptual alignment for future collaborations and research agendas.
Open Mobility Conference 2019, Brussels
The Open Mobility Conference was held in a former car production factory turned cultural and events space in central Brussels. The post-industrial relic was a fitting backdrop to discuss the transformations in mobility and transport systems taking place spurned by digitisation and business model innovation. The conference focused on finding ways forward to overcome barriers, as well as best practices so far, for building open ecosystems of mobility. This landscape will include the implementation of MaaS (Mobility as a Service) platforms in cities and regions globally which will enable planning, booking and itinerary management for door-to-door trips via a single interface e.g. a mobile App.
The emphasis of discussions on user experience and the sustainability of innovations were good to see. Across the board it was clear that to achieve the full potential of new mobility ecosystems greater partnership between mobility providers as well as relevant public bodies is essential.
During the afternoon I deliverd a workshop hosted by the Open Source Lab. It was an interactive session employing design thinking exercises. The workshop enabled small groups to collaboratively ideate and pitch potential MaaS solutions offering a better mobility experience for conference attendees.
Digital Future 2019 Science Match, Berlin
The Digital Future Science Match this year focused on the question ‘What’s next in Artificial Intelligence?’ I was able to attend the conference despite the spontaneous addition of my primary school aged son (thank you organisers!).
We attended talks during the session on AI in government and society and very much enjoyed the keynote talk by Prof. Miriam Meckel (University of St. Gallen) providing insights into the progress of her research regarding brain hacking which will be part of transformations in the ways we think and connect driven by AI. Another favourite was Prof. Philipp Staab’s (Humboldt-Universität Berlin) provocations on value creation and value extraction on digital platforms. He highlighted the current transformations taking place in techno-sociality:
“What is happening is the increasing automation of the social. Complex social relations are translated into computable processes.”
The German Federal Government’s Digital Strategy was the focus of subsequent panel discussion. The German public sector will loose about 400,000 public servants to retirement over coming years and one of the emerging benefits of AI applications will be the undertaking routine functions of government so that it is an attractive workplace option for new talent. Issues around data governance, the need for interoperability and public administration’s uptake of cloud services were also raised.
International Transport Forum Summit 2019, Leipzig
The overarching theme of the ITF Summit in Leipzig was transport connectivity for regional integration. Volkswagen Sustainability Council hosted a half day workshop on commuter mobility and collaboration for new intermodal solutions. Representing the Open Source Lab, I attended the workshop and co-hosted dialogue rounds of small groups (i.e. world café facilitation method) to enable exchange on the topic of open data and open approaches in new mobility ecosystems and their governance.
Partnerships and linkages for systems change
Across the workshops and conference talks dealing with global challenges and opportunities of digital transformations it was clear that greater interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships that link diverse actors are needed. It seems to be common knowledge that achieving systems level change requires multiple stakeholders and perspectives to connect. However, achieving joint working between different types of actors and domains is far from mainstream. In larger organisations this might mean addressing knowledge fragmentation and industry silos and forging partnerships or collaborations through open innovation. For startups this represents connecting the value proposition or solution to the broader ecosystem and establishing collaborations that create mutually beneficial synergies.
Both large and small organisations should look not only towards each other, but the broader community of potential collaborators that might not currently sit within a formal or institutional setting. This thinking is exemplified by some of IBM's endeavors in AI. As explained recently by Sophie Vandebroek, the VP of emerging-technology partnerships when discussing IBM's current AI research and development strategy:
"I think the whole ecosystem - companies, universities, and startups - is becoming more and more important. For example, in our work with quantum computing, we have open-sourced the hardware, so it’s available through the web. 120,000 people from all over the world have gone in, done little experiments, and more than 160 technical papers have been written, so some are doing great research. These 120,000 users are also from all continents, including Antarctica, and have conducted 10 million experiments.
What I’m trying to say is it’s not just partnerships with corporations or startups. It’s partnerships with individuals: with individual researchers and with developers..."
Open approaches are a powerful innovation ecosystem accelerator as part of these new coalitions and programs. Such might include open data, opens source software, open standards or transparent working methods. I have just finished a report for the Open Source Lab on "Openness in mobility transformations for zero emissions cities" in which I cover this point in terms of emerging urban mobility technologies - blog post here to follow shortly.
Digital humanism requires consideration of complex techno-social systems and conundrums. Only through ideating, problem solving, execution and feedback with collaborative interdisciplinarity and diversity can we drive forward technological innovations that optimise ingenuity whilst aligning with human dignity and potentials.
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