Technology and Sustainable Economic Development Jan 24, 2003

Strawman Outline Introductions Motivation + objectives Format Themes + topics Testbed Logistics + any other matters Upcoming talk announcement

Introductions Alastair Iles –Postdoctoral research fellow at Society & Environment; Energy and Resources Group, UCB –Ph.D in environmental policy, Harvard, ’00 –Research interests in policy, science, politics Matthew Kam –Ph.D. student in EECS with primary interest in Human-Centered Computing –B.A. Economics, B.S. EECS, UCB ’01 –B.A. thesis was his first shot at development microeconomics

Introductions In attendance: –Morgan Ames, EECS –Jennifer Bussell, Political Science –Federico Castillo, Environmental Sci/Economics –Alastair Iles, Energy and Resources Group –Matthew Kam, EECS –Alfred Round, City and Regional Planning Absent with apologies: –Nazneen Barma, Political Science –Rebecca Ghanadan, Energy and Resources Grp –Christopher Wu, Education

Motivation Have not encountered similar opportunity at UCB for cross-disciplinary engagement on this topic Technical design often isolated from social factors

Motivation But new research suggests: –Successful use of technology depends on tacit work practices developed for specific contexts –Decentralized technology may be more effective than centralized ones –Others?

Objectives Dual-track, student-run initiative –Technical track: How do we design technology for sustainable development? –Social track: What are the broader social, business and political contexts influencing the success of these designs?

Objectives Forum for interested UCB students to –Get acquainted –Keep up with related developments –Incubate alternative visions and projects to advance sustainable development in both developing and developed countries using technology –Others?

Objectives For Spring 2003, invite interested participants to co-author conceptual paper on integrating sustainability … –Grassroots-level development –Critiques of mundane science –Environmental sustainability –Others? … with existing IT design practices –Participatory design –Open source –Iterative design vs. waterfall model –Others?

Intended Participants All interested folks are welcome! Not restricted to Ph.D. students (also have undergraduates, exchange students, recent UCB graduates, and postdocs) Not restricted to EECS, ERG or SIMS (would benefit from MBA, public policy, public health, other science/engineering and social sciences inputs)

Tentative Format Weekly 1-hour meetings Format: –Presentation by volunteer (15 min) –Break-out discussions (15 min) –Combined discussion (20 min) Format to be reviewed collectively

Broad Themes Technology –Participatory design –Decentralized systems –Others? Sustainable development –Environmental resources –Economic, sociopolitical viability –Distributive effects of technology deployment –Others? To review collectively

Specific Topics Rotate among participants’ areas of interest / specialization Topics: –EECS (albeit with SIMS / HCI / STS flavor) –Green technology –Economics –Political configurations –Others? Tentative plan: Fix topics for each session in advance, students (or volunteer presenter) in respective areas contribute reading(s)

Testbed Intimate, long-term exposure to the design, use and evolution of technology promotes deeper appreciation and understanding To observe CHSP regulations Findings to be shared (and debated) among participants Collectively work towards an interpretation, i.e. the “lessons learnt”

Testbed First shot: Livenotes –Collaborative note-taking application –Handheld wireless tablets –E.g. of a decentralized, interactive technology Plan for 2003?

Logistics Fix weekly meeting day, times (F 11-12, F 3-4) and location (Soda) for Spring 2003 that’s convenient for everyone Reading loads (<= 2 papers per week) First meeting’s readings + presenter Yahoo Group Any other matters?

Upcoming Talk Talk next week (Jan 30, 4-5:30pm, 306 Soda) by Nitin Sawhney, co-instructor for MIT’s class on the participatory design of technology for sustainable development “How can we create an environment that encourages distributed individuals and organizations to tackle engineering design challenges in critical problem domains?”