Event

Centre for Digital Governance Launch Event

Panel discussion: How can digital governance strategies drive sustainability?

The Centre for Digital Governance aims to improve the public well-being by conducting academically rigorous research, providing world-leading education, and contributing societally relevant policy insight on the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation. 
To celebrate the launch of the Centre, a two-part event series has been organised that explores the challenges of digital transformation. The first event took place on 12 October and asked the question “How to regulate digital transformation?”. 

On October 29, we will discuss how two major transformation challenges of the 21st century, digitalisation and sustainability, are interrelated and require new governance approaches: On the one hand, digital solutions could be a game changer in reorganising industrial and social interactions, reducing their impact on the climate and the environment. On the other hand, digitalisation has a significant ecological footprint by itself and could amplify unsustainable growth.

Join us as we debate what rules need to be in place to make digitalisation an instrument of sustainability. Stay tuned for more information about the work of the Centre by joining our mailing list.

Panel discussion

Joanna Bryson is Professor of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School. Her research focuses on the impact of technology on human cooperation, and AI/ICT governance. From 2002-19 she was on the Computer Science faculty at the University of Bath. She has also been affiliated with the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, the School of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim, and the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy. During her PhD she observed the confusion generated by anthropomorphised AI, leading to her first AI ethics publication “Just Another Artifact” in 1998. In 2010, she co-authored the first national-level AI ethics policy, the UK's Principles of Robotics. 

Ilias Iakovidis is an adviser at the European Commission, DG CONNECT coordinating the work related to Green digital transformation. The work involves a development of EU wide measures to improve the energy and material efficiency of the ICT sector, in particular datacentres, electronic communications and digital devices. Ilias is also working on maximising the positive contribution of digital solutions (networks, technologies and applications) to accelerate the transition to circular economy, and, to support the sustainability goals in sectors such as energy networks, manufacturing, transport, and agri-food. He is exploring with stakeholders development of consistent and  transparent methods to estimate the net impact of digital solutions on the environment and climate. Before that, he was leading and managing eHealth and ICT for active and healthy ageing units and activities of the European Commission. 

Lena-Sophie Müller is the Director of Initiative D21 e.V. Her goal is to shape the digital transformation in close cooperation with politics and business for the benefit of the people. She shows the implications of new technologies for society, discusses as an expert on various podiums and gives lectures on the topics of digitisation. Since 2014 she has been managing director of the non-profit initiative D21 e.V., Germany's largest digital network of politicians and business leaders. She advises the German Bundestag as an expert of the Enquete Commission "Artificial Intelligence" (since 2018), is a member of the Digital Council of the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) as well as of the Digital Council of the BDA (since 2019) and since 2020 a new member of the Advisory Board Young Digital Economy of the Federal Minister of Economics and Energy.

Stephan Ramesohl acts as co-head of the research unit "Digital Transformation" within the Circular Economy Department at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment Energy in Wuppertal, Germany. Focus areas of research are the challenges, opportunities and policy options to drive a sustainable digital transformation as well as leveraging digital solutions for implementing a decarbonised, resource efficient circular economy. From 2007 to 2019 he held executive positions within the innovation function of the E.ON SE group, a leading European utility and energy company, recently as Vice President Innovation Strategy and Portfolio Management at E.ON SE group headquarter with a focus on digital transformation, new decentralised energy world solutions and business model innovation.

Moderator

Thomas Losse-Müller is an economist and public sector policy advisor. He is a Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, FiFo Policy Fellow at the University of Cologne and a member of several public and private sector advisory councils. He has held various positions as a senior civil servant and is a former State Secretary for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. As Cabinet Secretary for the Premier Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Losse-Müller coordinated governmental affairs, strategic human resource planning, and e-government and IT strategy, among others. He was also a member of the German national IT Planning Council, the German Broadcasting Commission and the supervisory committee of Dataport, a public sector IT provider. 

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