Expectations are high for digital technologies to address sustainability related challenges. While research into such applications and the twin transformation is growing rapidly, insights in the actual daily practices of digital sustainability within organizations is lacking. This is problematic as the contributions of digital tools to sustainability goals gain shape in organizational practices. To bridge this gap, we develop a theoretical perspective on digital sustainability practices based on practice theory, with an emphasis on the concept of sociomateriality. We argue that connecting meanings related to sustainability with digital technologies is essential to establish beneficial practices. Next, we contend that the meaning of sustainability is contextspecific, which calls for a local meaning making process. Based on our theoretical exploration we develop an empirical research agenda.
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There is a need for modernizing the Dutch collective management system of music copyright to match the rapidly changing digital music industry. Focusing on the often-neglected human values aspect, this study, part of a larger PhD research, examines the value preferences of music rights holders: creators and publishers. It aims to advise on technological redesign for music copyright management system and contribute to discussions on equitable collective management. Building upon prior research, which comprehensively analyzed the Dutch music copyright system and identified key stakeholders, this paper analyses 24 interviews with those key stakeholders to identify their values and potential value tensions. Initial findings establish a set of shared values, crucial for the next phases of the study –values operationalization. This research makes a academic contribution by integrating the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach with Distributive Justice Theory, enriching VSD's application and enhancing our understanding of the Economics of Collective Management (ECM).
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In recent years, the debate about the design of the monetary system has become increasingly prevalent. A major topic within this debate is central bank digital currency or CBDC for short. A survey by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) shows that in 2022, nine in ten central banks (CB) explored a digital variant of their own currency (Kosse & Mattei, 2022). In the euro area, the European Central Bank (ECB) is conducting a wide-range study of the pros and cons of a CBDC, in the form of a digital euro. Other CBs are at different stages of the research cycle. The Chinese central bank is experimenting extensively with its e-CNY and has been conducting research since 2014 (Luo, 2022; Prasad, 2021). The Swedish Riksbank published its first report on the possible designs and effects of the e-krona in September 2017 (Sveriges Riksbank, 2017). Against all these various studies and experiments is the Bahamian Sand dollar, the world's first, by 2020, fully implemented CBDC. The Bahamas is not the only country; in 2022, Jamaica fully introduced the JAM-DEX (CBDC Tracker, 2023). Since CBDCs are a relatively new phenomenon, there is logically little empirical data to support the potential advantages and disadvantages. The fully implemented Sand dollar can confirm or refute some of the claimed theoretical advantages and disadvantages, and lessons can be distilled from this case for the introduction of other CBDCs. This paper first discusses the (theoretical) motivations for implementing the Sand dollar, then discusses its operation and current low adaptation rates. Finally, it derives lessons that can be used in other CBDC cases.
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Dat wethouder Scholtes pleit voor digitale onafhankelijkheid van Amerikaanse techbedrijven, juicht Hans de Zwart toe. Maar de noodzaak hiervan is eigenlijk al jaren bekend, benadrukt hij. Nu moet Amsterdam ook echt actie ondernemen.
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At the end of the 1940s and the early 1950s, the question whether or not to rearm West Germany was a fiercely and hotly debated topic in Europe. The Americans suggested doing this by integrating the Federal Republic in NATO. However, many Europeans feared the resurgence of German militarism. Nowhere was this more true than in France. Therefore, the French Foreign Minister René Pleven launched the so-called Pleven Plan, designed to allow West German units to be established, but only in small units. That way, Europe could profit from West Germany’s manpower, without the country becoming a military threat. Discussions on the European Defence Community were tough, but in the end was signed by the six Founding Fathers. The Dutch did so reluctantly, especially because the Americans were left out, favouring security arrangements in NATO and rearming and incorporating West Germany in the Western alliance. To the Netherlands, it was essential to incorporate the British and especially the Americans in the Western defense; the Dutch always favoured an Atlantic alliance, opposing too much supranationality in the European integration project. The Federal Republic of Germany on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to regain sovereignty. In the end, the French National Assembly did not ratify the EDC-Treaty, opening the way to rearming West Germany and making it a full member of NATO. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=735130 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijn-lak-71793013/
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Moving away from the strong body of critique of pervasive ‘bad data’ practices by both governments and private actors in the globalized digital economy, this book aims to paint an alternative, more optimistic but still pragmatic picture of the datafied future. The authors examine and propose ‘good data’ practices, values and principles from an interdisciplinary, international perspective. From ideas of data sovereignty and justice, to manifestos for change and calls for activism, this collection opens a multifaceted conversation on the kinds of futures we want to see, and presents concrete steps on how we can start realizing good data in practice.
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This book is a journey through coexisting, emerging or speculated about, types of digital value transfer infrastructures. Using digital value transfer infrastructures as a central case study, this thesis is concerned with unpacking the negotiation processes that shape the governance, design and political purposes of digital infrastructures that are closely linked to the public interest and state sovereignty. In particular, the papers that are assembled in this manuscript identify and inspect three main socio-technical developments occurring in the domain of value transfer technologies: a) the privatization and platformization of digital payment infrastructures; b) the spread of blockchain-based digital value transfer infrastructures; c) the construction of digital value transfer infrastructures as public utilities, from the part of public institutions or organizations. Concerned with the relationship between law, discourse and technological development, the thesis explores four transversal issues that strike differences and peculiarities of these three scenarios: i) privacy; ii) the synergy and mutual influence of legal change and technological development in the construction of digital infrastructures; iii) the role of socio-technical imaginaries in policy-making concerned with digital infrastructures; iv) the geography and scale of digital infrastructures. The analyses lead to the argument that, in the co-development of legal systems and digital infrastructures that are core to public life, conflicts are productive. Negotiations, ruptures and exceptions are constitutive of the unending process of mutual reinforcement, and mutual containment, in which a plurality of agencies – expressed through legal institutions, symbolic systems, as well as information and media structures – are entangled.
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Lives of Data maps the historical and emergent dynamics of big data, computing, and society in India. Data infrastructures are now more global than ever before. In much of the world, new sociotechnical possibilities of big data and artificial intelligence are unfolding under the long shadows cast by infra/structural inequalities, colonialism, modernization, and national sovereignty. This book offers critical vantage points for looking at big data and its shadows, as they play out in uneven encounters of machinic and cultural relationalities of data in India’s socio-politically disparate and diverse contexts.Lives of Data emerged from research projects and workshops at the Sarai programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. It brings together fifteen interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners to set up a collaborative research agenda on computational cultures. The essays offer wide-ranging analyses of media and techno-scientific trajectories of data analytics, disruptive formations of digital economy, and the grounded practices of data-driven governance in India. Encompassing history, anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), media studies, civic technology, data science, digital humanities, and journalism, the essays open up possibilities for a truly situated global and sociotechnically specific understanding of the many lives of data.
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This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the AI-related skills and roles needed to bridge the AI skills gap in Europe. Using a mixed-method research approach, this study investigated the most in-demand AI expertise areas and roles by surveying 409 organizations in Europe, analyzing 2,563 AI-related job advertisements, and conducting 24 focus group sessions with 145 industry and policy experts. The findings underscore the importance of both general technical skills in AI related to big data, machine learning and deep learning, cyber and data security, large language models as well as AI soft skills such as problemsolving and effective communication. This study sets the foundation for future research directions, emphasizing the importance of upskilling initiatives and the evolving nature of AI skills demand, contributing to an EU-wide strategy for future AI skills development.
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De African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) heeft een nieuw rapport gepubliceerd waarin de toevoer en verspreiding van digitale surveillance technologie in Afrika in kaart is gebracht. Onderzoeker Anand Sheombar van het lectoraat Procesinnovatie & Informatiesystemen is betrokken bij het ADRN-collectief en heeft samen met de Engelse journalist Sebastian Klovig Skelton, door middel van desk research de aanvoerlijnen vanuit Westerse en Noordelijke landen geanalyseerd. De bevindingen zijn te lezen in dit Supply-side report hoofdstuk van het rapport. APA-bronvermelding: Klovig Skelton, S., & Sheombar, A. (2023). Mapping the supply of surveillance technologies to Africa Supply-side report. In T. Roberts (Ed.), Mapping the Supply of Surveillance Technologies to Africa: Case Studies from Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Malawi, and Zambia (pp. 136-167). Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.
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