Between the 10th and 15th of April I attended CHI 2010** in Atlanta. A very positive experience as I discovered a growing community of people interested in the use of computers for sustainability, and a corpus of articles very relevant to my work.

I can resume the most relevant points of what I did there:

• Intro and advanced courses on Research & Design for Sustainability: Organized by Eli Blevis from Indiana University and one of the most relevant persons in sustainable interaction design and Daniela Busse from SAP research lab at Palo Alto. Very interesting discussions, and I have now a big bunch of relevant papers to read. Great community there, probably the most relevant for the work I’m doing.
• Sense and Sustainability session: With one paper suggesting that persuasive techniques need to be adapted for different levels of awareness (One size does not fit all, Helen Ai He), and Leonardo Bonanni and Matthew Hockenberry presenting their project Sourcemap (more to come around this).
• Making Food, Producing Sustainability. Panel discussing the relationship between food production, sustainability and human computer interactions.
• Mapping the Landscape of Sustainable HCI: Paper by Carl DiSalvo, Phoebe Sengers and Hrönn Brynjarsdóttir that maps the state of the art of sustainable human computer interaction and analyze the efforts and directions. Very interesting reading and in the lines of the conclusions we are getting. A must read!

In conclusion: a very relevant conference, lots of new contacts, a great community to be part of, great body of articles to relate to. See you in CHI2011!

* CC picture by http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbanks/4524958711/

** CHI is the most important conference on human computer interaction, organized by ACM, and it draws in thousands of researchers and practitioners.

I’ve assisted to the Artificial Intelligence for Development symposium, part AAAI 2010 Spring Symposium at Stanford March 22–24.  Artificial Intelligence for Development represents a growing  research interest on applying AI methodology as machine learning, data mining to development problems. The co-chair were Nathan Eagle from MIT / SFI and Eric Horvitz from Microsoft Research. Some representative examples from the sessions:

• Using ai in m-health for reducing expertise need, for instance automatic detection of diabetic reinopathy (Silberman et al) or heartsound diagnostics using a smartphone (Chena et al.).
• Data mining mobile use data from developing countries for gaining knowledge of their impact in society. Several interesting cases were presenting were they are using these detail records for research purposes.
• Using voice as data for helping farmers in rural India (Parikh, T) and using speech technology for information access (Barnard et al, Farrell et al)

During the last day I moderated one of the breakout sessions discussing the application of these methods for sustainable development and not limited to developing regions. This was great to discuss some of my interests as most of the session had not included a sustainability or environmental perspective.  The most interesting points of discussion from my point of view were:

• Using artificial intelligence for optimization (that’s one of the typical points of using ICT for sustainability) but also use ai  simulation methods for predicting and avoiding rebound effects of the optimization measures.
• Using ai for cradle to cradle implementation, both at the design process for creating products that make an optimal use of resources and that can be easily and completely recycled (ai 4 design, material sciences). And for accounting and verification that the resources loops are closed and efficient.

A very interesting symposium, very interesting attendees, and several points and inspiration to be taken for our research.

I’ll be in U.S. for six weeks starting this Sunday. I’ll be mainly located at U.C. Berkeley, working with my Marko Turpeinen. I’ll be also attending:

• Symposium on Artificial Inteligence for Development: Data-driven development is one of the areas I’m particularly interested. Stanford, March 22-24, http://ai-d.org/
• CHI2010, the biggest Human Computer Interaction Conference includes several sessions and courses on HCI and sustainability. Atlanta, April 10-15. http://chi2010.org

I’ll keep updating this blog with all interesting activities while away.

The paper written together with Daniel Spikol at CeLeKT has been accepted at Mobile Human Computer Interaction 2009 in the workshop on Sharing Experiences with Social Mobile Media.

Here is the abstract:

We have a personal relationship with mobile phones, since they are closer to us than any other technological device. They are ubiquitous (60% of the world population owns one), individual, and pervasive through our lifestyle (we have them with us all the time and everywhere). These modern devices are nearly as powerful as personal computers, always connected to Internet and loaded with sensors like GPS and accelerometers. These mobile devices offer the opportunity to persuade users to change attitudes and behaviors towards personal health and environmental issues. For this paper we will focus on the design of a mobile application for reducing in carbon dioxide emissions, using the definition of “Climate Persuasive Services” that can change personal attitudes and behaviors regarding climate change for reducing greenhouse gases emissions. The paper presents design practices that have resulted in a prototype mobile application.

I will post the pdf soon.

The paper I presented at Persuasive 2009 is now available for download as PDF at ACM. Please have a look at it!

Here is the abstract:

ICT has reshaped our society, and with the current accelerating development of technology, and its wider distribution throughout the globe, they will continue doing so even more. These changes in society are important for sustainability. They affect the physical way the society and the environment interact, but they also affect the way people think, learn and behave.

We suggest that the persuasive power of ICT can be oriented towards climate change. For this purpose we define the concept of “climate persuasive services” as ICT applications that change personal attitudes regarding climate change and/or change behavior towards reducing greenhouse gases emissions. We consider mobile phones, pervasive sensors and social media as three key technological drivers for the development of climate persuasion applications.

We have analyzed the use of persuasion principles in existing web and mobile applications forming three clusters: tracking carbon footprints, sharing goals and making green behavior easier. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more planned use of persuasive principles, and propose six different opportunities for improvement.

1. Reference

Global Civil Society and Digital Communication Networks
November 28th
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

2. Why it is important for me

Manuel Castells is one of the most important communication scholar in the world, his analysis of the network society is one central pillar for the sociological discourse developing for my work.

3. Notes

Castells talked mainly about the civil society, how there has been a displacement from local civil society that was a continuation of the nation-state (trade union, churches…) towards more ad-hoc organizations made possible by ICT. This horizontal movements are based on networks of trust, the people have a personal connection with the network. This trust is used to bypass the government and it’s and embryo for something new.

Castells analyzed the Obama campaign and his use of network of trusts (remind me of Cialdini “liking” part of his persuasion techniques) and new technologies.

There was also mention to the change towards horizontal mass-self communication, and the relation with traditional mass-media.

Castells also commented that ICT allow massive urbanization and the creation of huge metropolitan areas based on sprawl, mentioning the great Los Angeles conurbation. I personally disagree with the physical possibilities of Los Angeles car-based-style sprawl, and do not think that cities will develop toward that. There could be a good discussion of Castell’s global / local paradox around that.

Panel discussion: Castells on the left, Marko Turpeinen next to him.

1. Reference

Klimatforum 2008
November 27th
Naturvårdsverket at Aula Magna, Stockholm University, Sweden

www.naturvardsverket.se/klimatforum2008

2. Why it matters for me

It has a direct connection with my research around climate change from a consumer perspective. The reports presented from Naturvårdsverket are directly useful for the Persuasive Service project.

3. Notes

Sven Hunhammar (Naturvårsverket) presented a report showing the difference from a greenhouse gas emissions calculation from a production perspective to one from a consumption perspective. The swedish carbon footprint increases 25% reaching 10tons CO2eq per capita. This is still in the lower end, only international flights that start in Sweden are counted (so not the return, neither other scales) and flights are not adjusted to the extra impact related to altitude.

Private consumption account for the 80% of the total and it’s distributed as:

• Private transportation: 30%
• Housing: 30%
• Food: 25%
• Shopping: 15%

Link to report (In swedish).

Kristian Skånberg: We should have 2 tons as aim (That means 8 tons reduction per capita)

Jessica Cederberg Wodmar presented another report from Naturvårdsverket showing the results of a big scale survey about the response of swedes to climate change. They clustered the results in six diferent personas:

• 4% Eco-elite, 18% Engaged, 26% Moderate, 25% Newly awaken, 23% Passive, 8% Skeptics
• Skeptics are mainly older men, passive mainly men, engaged mainly women.
• 100% know about what climate change is.

This report is also available in the website.

Andreas Carlgren (Swedish Environment Minister) keeping alive the myth that “Sweden is so good, China and India are the problem”, and that Sweden can be a “model” that can drive the transition to a low-carbon world. Part of the old discourse, based on biases and data out of context.

Discussion: How business handle a changed consumption? (Volvo, IKEA, Fritidsresor, LRF, Max Hamburgare)

• Lottie Knutson: Not focus on the environmental benefits, but the climate reduction comes as a by-product.
• They do not see pression from the consumers.
• They focus on efficiency.

Discussion: Who has the responsability? Consumer, Government, Business? (Statoil, Svenska Kyrkan, Respect, Banco, Coop, Svenskt Näringsliv, Anders Wijkman (EU parlament))

• Sasja Beslik: Change the business model to a sustainable one, working in the old capital model cannot produce sustainability (more or less). CEOs do not have responsabilities after increasing profits.
• Anders Wijkman: relating to ecological economics, we need business models before creating business solutions. How can it be that Exxon is still the company that makes more money in the world?
• Annika Lundius from Svenskt Näringsliv: Sweden is “klimatduktig” and it has become very effective in the last decades. This is both discussed by Sasja and then desmounted by John Holmberg presentation.

John Homberg from Chalmers argumented how most trends are going completely wrong and how the link between consuming power and carbon dioxide is so difficult to break. He presented climate change as the first real global problem, and that it can be an oportunity o create a new global ethic.

1. Reference

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008
October 22th – 23th
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/

2. Why it is important for me

Internet and the new media has made possible to create and distribute culture and knoweldge faster, cheaper and globally. Now it is possible to collaborate across borders and contexts, to access massive amounts of information and cultural works, to remix and recreate using almost infinitely available bits of knowledge.

This technical possibilities have created new ways of thinking around intelectual and cultural propierty rights. Creative commons licenses, open source software and content, user created content, accidental profits, the long tail, are concepts of the avantgarde of a new way of thinking. This decentralized way of working, with fairness, knowledge advance and the common good at its core (instead of profits and increased utility), can be a good applied metaphor of how a sustainable society could work. Knowledge and content freedom could also be argued to be positive for a societal and economic sustainability.

3. Notes

Mike Linksvayer:
Piracy promotes the established content and cultural hegemony. Piracy is not about creation. We should move from piracy to creative communities. Eat your own dog food, use yourself the open tools.

Victor Stone:
Remixing = creating = sampling = coping. The sampling generation.

John Buckman:
Interesting bookmooch project. Changin from a profit oriented company to generating profit “by accident”.

Nicklas lundblad:
Creativity as mutation and selection, an incremental innovation. Creativity theory looking cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Do users generate and creators create? Destroy the myth of creators as illuminated geniuses. Change the semantics from user generated to user created content, from artist created to corporate generated content.

CC Pictures from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arkiresearchgroup/

Majora Carter keynote, originally uploaded by It’s a mobile world.

I saw the presentation of Majora Carter at the Vårt Klimat conference, she presented the idea of environmental justice, how pollution is also a poverty and and racial issue. Really interesting to see a hands-on approach on sustainability, green-collar jobs, greenroofs inititatives, grassroot community building.

Her presentation at TED

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/majora_carter_s_tale_of_urban_renewal.html

Sustainable South Bronx initiative

http://www.ssbx.org/