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Algorithms – and the actors behind them – are surveying and impacting ever more dimensions of our modern lives. They recommend which movies to watch; they calculate risk appropriate credit scores; and they play a role in meting out “just” punishment; to only name a few areas. At the same time, they correct imperfect human decisions and add new informational dimensions to decisions ...

Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on individual behavior is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals.Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame ...

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) – the financial pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe – has been one of the good news stories to emerge in a decade of economic uncertainty. Launched by the Juncker Commission and the EIB Group in 2014, it has gone well beyond its target of €500 billion in mobilised investments. In the meantime, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the ...

The German Environment Agency (UBA) and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) invite you to attend a conference on “Sustainability Transformation Conference 2020: Socio-ecological transformation on the fast track – Covid-19 as catalyst of change?”.The digital conference will focus on the transformation of the economy and society to ...

The global transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is accelerating. Aggressive targets and outright bans on internal combustion vehicles have been announced recently in the United States and Europe. As this reality sinks in, a challenge arises: Asia, and especially China, dominates EV supply chains, particularly for batteries, the most crucial EV component. The response to this challenge has been ...

As the next wave of information technology matures, many commentators worry about the job disruption that automation technology will bring. In a recent policy brief released by the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and his co-authors argued that the United States currently taxes machinery and equipment too little compared to labor, thereby encouraging ...

Public investments in research and development that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions to date have focused heavily on physics and chemistry. It’s time for biology to play a much bigger role. Recent breakthroughs in gene editing are unlocking vast opportunities to mitigate climate change. They range from enhancing the efficiency of photosynthesis to reducing methane emissions from cows to ...

Europe’s top-three lignite countries are Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, Europe’s lignite triangle. Over the last dozen or so months, national discussions on the gradual phasing out of lignite have accelerated in these countries. The German Coal Commission proposed to close all hard coal- and lignite-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest, and the German parliament adopted this plan. ...

After having successfully navigated our first ever digital talk in May with Waugh Thistleton Architects, we are looking forward to our second talk of the semester with Helge Lunder from MDH Architects in Oslo. Continuing our semester focus on urban timber construction, MDH gained significant publicity in 2016 with their Moholt Timber Towers project, an 8-storey student housing project in CLT which ...

Our flagships established new and innovative formats to ensure the transfer of knowledge and enter into dialogue with wide a wide variety of social groups.More than 20 innovative demonstrators and test systems in our application center illustrate the current state of logistics research for the no.1 future industryWithin the context of our virtual tour we give you an insight into the ...

In 2019, Dortmund’s Digital Innovation Hub took first place in the Champions Challenge of the European Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH), making it the best hub in Europe out of 500 DIHs in the announced categories “SME Orientation” and “Service Portfolio”. “This award is a great honor for us: it rewards the tireless commitment of science, business, politics and associations to develop ...

Within the next five years there will be billions of things represented by digital twins. These representatives of the physical world will lead to new possibilities for collaboration between experts of the physical world and data scientists. Digital twins are strong thought leaders who drive innovation and performance. Digital Twin technology helps companies improve the customer experience ...

This course looks at where important materials in products we use every day come from and how these materials can be used more efficiently, longer, and in closed loops. This is the aim of the Circular Economy, but it doesn’t happen on its own. It is the result of choices and strategies by suppliers, designers, businesses, policymakers and all of us as consumers. In addition to providing many ...

Learn about waste management and its key role in saving critical raw materials. Gain practical knowledge of the circular economy, recycling, refurbishment, and remanufacturing as a means of identifying new business opportunities. About this course How can we ensure the continuous supply of the increasingly scarce raw materials that are needed to make the products we use every day? In this course, ...

The World Energy Council traditionally supports the German-African Energy Forum as a partner. With 400 visitors and participants from over 35 African countries every year, the Energy Forum is the most important platform for European-African cooperation in the energy sector. In 2019 the focus was on the implementation and financing of the African Energy Revolution. The forum concentrates on the ...

The role of platforms as gatekeepers of information and disinformation has become very important. During this CONNECT University session high-level speakers will discuss how successful was the implementation of the Code of Practice. The lecture will explore the issues of political ads transparency, scrutiny of ad placements, integrity of services, content ranking algorithms, access to data. ...

Countries throughout Southeast Europe (SEE) have high shares of lignite-fired electricity in the mix, generated by an ageing fleet of power plants. About 50 percent of the region’s lignite generation capacity must be modernised or replaced in the next decade. Investment choices in the next three to five years will thus determine whether SEE avoids a fossil fuel lock-in as most of the planned new ...

Professorin Corinne Le Quéré: „The interactions between climate change and the carbon cycle and the future we choose“ This year will be remembered as the year the world woke up to the climate crisis – and it’s about time! Climate change is unfolding as predicted by scientists repeatedly and consistently over the past thirty years at least. We can now see the changes with our own eyes, ...

Since the 1960's we have observed paradigm shifts in the context of distributed computing from mainframes to client-server models and back to centralized cloud approaches. The next development will include the distribution of intelligence back to the topological edge of the network. This natural evolution decreases dependency and load on the network and enhances data privacy and protection. Edge ...

The effects of climate change are estimated to intensify in the coming years as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions keep rising. If we could manage to make our economy circular then we could reduce GHG emissions by 56%. During the CONNECT University session on “When Digital meets Circular economy” Dr Janez Potočnik discussed not only the need to move to circular economy as a most efficient way ...