Tech4Good: AIoT Open Source Innovations for Carbon Neutrality, Climate Change, Wildlife Conservation, and Sustainable Communities
Seeed Studio
Session 148
How will the AIoT open source hardware and software transform the whole landscape of achieving the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? For many years, Seeed Studio has been promoting the idea of using open tech communities’ products, strengths, skill sets, and resources for meaningful causes like the UN's SDGs of the 2030 Agenda: i) avidly sharing contents on LinkedIn using hashtags like Makers4SDGs, OpenTech4SDGs, Seeed4SDGs, and SDGNews; ii) initiating Earth Day campaigns; iii) sponsoring SDG hackathons and maker projects, and; iv) participating sustainability-focused events and talks.
Why? Because – in the era of globalization and unpredictable socio-economic, environmental, and technological transformations, decentralized innovation has become an indispensable component for sustainable development of the world. In particular, environmental challenges posed by climate change have increasingly become complex and multi-dimensional in nature. As the name suggests, the 2030 Agenda of SDGs is expected to be achieved by the year of 2030, by means of SDG 17 on global multi-stakeholder partnerships from all sectors, disciplines, and spheres. This implies that we now have less than 9 years to reach the SDGs by 2030. This means that we, as the makers and innovators of open tech communities, should be boldly and proactively involved in addressing these challenges by utilizing open source hardware and software resources. Only by coming together, working together, and taking concerted actions together, can we be able to address the collectively recognized challenges of our time. Indeed, if not us, who? If not us, when?
🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼
What’s on the Agenda?
On this background, this thematic workshop focuses on real-life application cases of open AIoT hardware and software solutions for carbon neutrality, climate change, environmental conservation, wildlife protection, and sustainable cities and communities. This 1 hour-long workshop will first begin by inviting 6 speakers to give 7-minute individual presentations, which will be followed by a moderated panel discussion through Q&A session. For this Tech4Good workshop, Seeed Studio has joined forces with open tech communities to share:
1. Technological Knowledge & Expertise: Why open source technology is important for our world? How the emerging open tech scenarios will drive inclusive innovation at individual, communal, societal, national, and transnational levels?
2. Solutions, Cases & Projects: How utilizing open source hardware and software is solving a variety of environmental, social, and economic issues of concern, along with its potential contribution to carbon neutrality?
3. Insights & Reflection: What multi-stakeholder resources (academia, UN agencies, CSOs, governments, companies, etc.) are needed for glocal open tech communities to accelerate scalable solutions more rapidly for holistic and sustainable development? What are the obstacles from obtaining those resources?
Register to the most eye-opening WSIS Forum workshop by clicking the "Register" button above! We shall be looking forward to welcoming (and potentially working) with you all for our sustainable future! 😊
🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼
About Seeed Studio
Established in 2008, Seeed Studio is the AIoT open source solution provider for all types of traditional industries' sustainable digitalization. The comapny is located in Shenzhen – the Silicon Valley of China – with its branch offices in the USA and Japan. At present, Seeed Studio’s technological hardware products (IoT, AI, and Edge Computing) and customization services are rapidly used and deployed for smart agriculture, smart cities, smart environmental monitoring, smart animal farming, smart aquaculture, meteorological monitoring, and all types of emerging future scenarios, enabled by the Industry 4.0. Seeed Studio works for 1,000,000+ service users in 180 countries, and has strategic partnerships with 200+ industry players. With the company’s mission to “Empower Everyone to Achieve Their Digital Transformation Goals” (which shares similar values with SDGs’ Motto of “Leave No One Behind”), Seeed Studio is devoted to using open source technologies for accelerating SDGs together with multi-stakeholders from UN agencies, academia, companies, governments, public organizations, CSOs, and more. This is why, Seeed Studio also founded “Chaihuo x.factory”, and started China’s first Maker Movement in 2012 by annually organizing “Maker Faire Shenzhen”.
🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼🌹🍀🌻🌷🌼
Eric Pan is the Founder and CEO of “Seeed Studio” and “Chaihuo x.factory”, as well as the Producer of “Maker Faire Shenzhen”. He believes in the potential of open source technology and social innovations in achieving the UN's SDGs. Moreover, he is one of the recognized leading figures of Maker Movement and Maker Culture in China. In the era towards the UN’s 2030 Agenda, he is keen on cooperating with multi-stakeholders and technological partners to provide open source solutions for a variety of SDGs-related projects, through which ground-breaking solutions can be co-created and scaled up at global level so as to contribute to a sustainable future. In 2013, he was selected by Forbes Magazine as "China's 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30" and appeared on the cover of the Forbes China. Likewise, he was listed on "2017 China’s Business List of 100 Creative People".
🔗 Stay connected with Eric Pan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericspan/
Cesar Jung-Harada is a French-Japanese Designer, Environmentalist, Educator, and Entrepreneur based in Hong Kong, who is passionate about Ocean Technology, Impact Innovation, and Education. He is the Director of MakerBay (Hong Kong Makerspace), Scoutbots (Ocean Robotic Startup), Senior Lecturer in Design and Architecture Department at the University of Hong Kong, as well as Principal Investigator and Researcher at the Swire Institute of Marine Science. Moreover, he serves as a Trustee of the Board of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (Qatar University), and regularly delivers workshops and keynote speeches at international conferences, including but not limited to, the UN, Harvard, and TED. Some of his signature open source projects are Ocean Imagineer, Coral Reef Mapping Robot, Protei, and Marine Litter Detective.
🔗 Stay connected with Cesar Jung-Harada on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cesarharada/
Adam Benzion is the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Edge Impulse, the Co-Founder of Hackster.io, a Microsoft alumni, a recovered hardware entrepreneur, and an investor. His expertise lies on building meaningful technological solutions, that can solve pressing challenges of our time - such as wildlife and environmental preservation, by means of using open source principles and community-building initiatives. From time to time, he enjoys writing for Fast Company, Power Magazine, TechCrunch, EE Times, and The Next Web.
🔗 Stay connected with Adam Benzion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambenzion/
Tomas Diez Ladera is a Venezuela-born Urbanist, who specializes in digital fabrication and its implications in the future of cities and societies. He is the the Founding Partner and Executive Director of the Fab City Foundation, and the Meaningful Design Group Bali. Furthermore, he is the Co-Director and a Board Member of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, where he also works as a Senior Researcher and a Tutor. In fact, he is the Co-Director of the "Masters in Design for Emergent Futures" and the "Masters in Design for Distributed Innovation". On this backdrop, he collaborates with trans-sectoral partners for joint projects, events, and programs worldwide with the Fab Foundation, such as, Fab City, Fab Conferences, and Fab Academy, to mention a few.
🔗 Stay connected with Tomas Diez Ladera on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-diez-2b37aa11/
Tristan Copley Smith is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Carbon Catchers (Documentary on Climate Tech) and OSBeehives (Open Source Beehive Health Monitoring Solution). Besides, he is a Filmmaker, Social Entrepreneur, Communications Specialist, and a Journalist, working at the intersections of climate change, storytelling, and open source entrepreneurialism. In fact, he began his career as Wikileaks' Internal Video Producer, and went on developing award-winning short documentaries and reportage with institutions like NASA, and publications such as Al Jazeera and the Guardian. For many years, he has been ceaselessly working to promote the open source agenda and generate a positive impact on the planet. Furthermore, by founding three eco-tech companies, he gained the title of MIT Innovator Under 35 in 2019. These experiences showcase his unique insights into the world of climate startups and how to tell their stories.
🔗 Stay connected with Tristan Copley Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristancsmith/
Sam Kelly is a New Zealand-born engineer working in the space of developing technologies that can benefit nature and wildlife. He founded Conservation Tech and the Blueprint Conferences while he was a student at Duke University, that aimed to bring engineers into the conservation realm through hands-on projects and network connections. As the Co-founder of FaunaLabs, he has developed bio-optical physiology tracking tools for aquatic animals, such as whales. At Conservation X Labs, he has helped develop the NABIT (Nucleic Acid Barcode Identification Tool: a low-cost, hand-held, field-ready, automated, and rapid genetic diagnostics tool) and leads the Sentinel AI, which is a venture to bring user-defined AI to wildlife monitoring tools like trail cameras.
🔗 Stay connected with Sam Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samjkelly/
Ye Seong Shin is the South Korean Sustainability and CSR Manager at Seeed Studio in China. She is leading the company’s operations in planning, implementing, and evaluating the open tech projects from the perspectives of: the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Open Innovation, Sustainable Human Development, Social Work, and Law. With an aim to accelerate achieving the SDGs using bottom-up, open source, and scalable innovations, she is responsible for researching and identifying potential multi-stakeholder partnerships to jointly organize projects, platforms, events, webinars, workshops, hackathons, and more, by facilitating local communities’ self-empowerment. Her recent endeavors include launching Seeed Studio's “#Tech4Good Bounty Program”, which is an all-year-round open source AIoT hardware sponsorship for carbon neutrality, environmental monitoring, wildlife conservation, and other SDGs projects. On this background, she is a passionate, multicultural, multi-disciplinary and open-minded individual, who is keen on utilizing emerging technologies for an equitably equal world.
🔗 Stay connected with Ye Seong Shin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ye-seong-shin-55301a172/
-
C1. The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
-
C2. Information and communication infrastructure
-
C3. Access to information and knowledge
-
C4. Capacity building
-
C6. Enabling environment
-
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-business
-
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-learning
-
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-environment
-
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-agriculture
-
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life — E-science
-
C11. International and regional cooperation
-
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
-
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
-
Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
-
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
-
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
-
Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
-
Goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
-
Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
