Doctoral School on Sustainable ICT – Make ICT more green, more ethic, more human

30th of August – 3rd of September, 2021, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Days

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

When?

August 30 - September 3, 2021

Where?

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Contact

sict [at] uclouvain [dot] be or here

Committee

The organizing team of SICT2021 is composed of motivated and passionate Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers and professors mostly working in the Electrical Engineering department of ICTEAM (Institute of Information and Communications Technologies, Electronics, and Applied Mathematics), at UCLouvain. In addition, the team is guided by experts in pedagogy from UCLouvain.

Program

A five-days doctoral school on sustainable ICT. While we are building the program for the 2021 edition, you can check last year program to get an idea of what to expect from us!

Registration

Registration for SICT2021 are not yet open. Please subscribe to the SICT newsletter to stay informed on the opening date.

Venue

Louvain-la-Neuve is a well-connected university-city. Check here for transportation and accommodations .

Activities

Louvain-la-Neuve offers a lot of activities for afterwork, but SICT will also provide participants with inspiring evening activites.

Walk the talk

SICT aims at being an example of sustainability. Check here what we’ve put in place to be an eco-friendly summer school, and how you can help on your side!

Monday, September 7

Tuesday, September 8

Wednesday, September 9

Thursday, September 10

Friday, September 11

Day 1 – Building the overview of ICT

This introducing day is about providing some transversal resources that will be used by participants throughout the entire doctoral summer school. Some pieces of answer to what sustainability in ICT is will be proposed. During the afternoon, an interactive workshop called “La Fresque du Numérique” will take place with two main objectives: building a common basic overview of the ICT life-cycle and create social interactions between participants. It is also about getting them to ask questions on which the activities of the week will be based.

Day 2 – The ICT ecosystem

The day is about taking the ICT into a different light under the guidance of other cultures considerations, mainly questioning the needs and socio-economical impacts. Different economic models such as circular economy and their implication in the design phase (eco-design strategies) are considered, alongside with rebound effects impacts. The afternoon will focus on collaborative sessions about geopolitical issues related to ICT.

Day 3 – The material basis and LCA the ICT

The third day of the workshop will cover the material basis of ICT products and services. In particular, the various impacts (societal, geopolitics, environmental) of raw material production, processing, manufacturing, recycling and disposal will be discussed. The afternoon will be dedicated to LCA : theory and practice.

Day 4 – Towards post-growth and re-centered ICT

Do we really need Alexa-enabled smart shower-heads or connected fry pans? Is working on energy-efficiency satisfactory from a sustainability point of view? During the fourth day of the summer school, we will question the mainstream research agenda of ICT, and learn about unconventional and inspiring ICT research and projects. Some time will be dedicated to work in small groups in order to encourage each participant to share about the link between his own research specificity and the ICT overview. Specific eco-design tools and methodology will be provided during a workshop in order to tackle some use-cases challenges.

Day 5 – Stories and Synthesis

On the last day of the doctoral summer school, we will hear about inspiring stories of sustainable ICT projects. Finally, the participants will discuss together about how they could orientate their research towards more holistic considerations and more sustainability. In addition, a collective analysis of drivers and limitations towards science and research for positive socio-ecological impacts will be carried out.