Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability

http://www.urbaninformatics.net/green/

Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability Workshop to be held at the 6th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, 2008 May 19-22, Sydney, Australia http://www.urbaninformatics.net/green/ Environmental sustainability and climate change are issues which must no longer be ignored by anyone, any industry or any academic community. The pervasive technology, ubiquitous computing and HCI community is slowly waking up to these global concerns. The Nobel Peace Price 2007 was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ?for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change?. The citation highlights the urgency of the fact that information and awareness around causes and implications are necessary but not sufficient to combat climate change. Action is required. The key theme of this workshop around environmental sustainability will be addressed threefold: 1. Providing people with environmental data and educational information ? via mass communications such as film, TV and print and new media, or micro communications such as pervasive sensor networks (cf. Participatory Urbanism and Ergo at urban-atmospheres.net; real- time Rome at senseable.mit.edu; biomapping.net; placeengine.com) ? may not trigger sufficient motivation to get people to change their habits towards a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. This workshop seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into motivating and encouraging action and change. 2. Pervasiveness can easily turn invasive. It has already caused negative consequences in biological settings (e.g., algae in lakes and oceans, kudzu vine in the southeastern US, rabbits and cane toads in Australia). Pervasive can be a dangerous term when the ecological impacts are disregarded. Pervasive technology is no different. In order to avoid further serious damage to the environment, this workshop aims to lay the foundations to start re-considering the impact of pervasive technology from an ecological perspective. 3. Addressing the 21st century Digital Divide: The mass uptake of pervasive technology brings about digitally networked and augmented societies; however, access is still not universal. Castells and others use the notion of the ?digital divide? to account for those whose voices are not heard by this technology. Initially, the divide was seen only between the first and third worlds and then between urban and rural, but with today?s near ubiquitous coverage, the digital divide between humans and the environment needs to be addressed. Virtual environments could give the natural world an opportunity to ?speak?. How can we address imbalances? For example, sensors embedded in the environment could allow creeks and rivers to blog their own pollution levels, local parks can upload images of native bird life. Can the process of ?blogging sensor data? (sensorbase.org) assist us in becoming more aware of the needs of nature? How can we avoid the downsides? We kindly ask prospective participants to submit a position paper (2-4 pages total, in English, .doc, .rtf or .pdf file formats) related to one of the workshop topics to Marcus Foth at m.foth [AT] qut.edu.au by January 25, 2008. Each submission should include a short biography stating the author?s background and motivation for attending the workshop. Papers will be reviewed by the workshop committee and selected on the basis of relevance, originality and impact. Accepted position papers will appear in the Pervasive 2008 Workshops Proceedings. A template will be made available at the Pervasive 2008 website. The workshops proceedings will also be published online and distributed electronically at the conference (on a CD or memory stick). All workshop participants will need to register for the conference. Further information is available at http://www.urbaninformatics.net/green/ Marcus Foth, Queensland University of Technology Christine Satchell, Queensland University of Technology Eric Paulos, Intel Research Berkeley Tom Igoe, Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York Carlo Ratti, SENSEable City Laboratory, MIT -- Dr Marcus Foth Australian Postdoctoral Fellow Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology (CRICOS No. 00213J) Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia Phone +61 7 313 x88772 - Fax x88195 - Office Z6-511 m.foth@qut.edu.au - http://www.vrolik.de/publications/

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