Anita Gurumurthy has been invited to moderate a panel discussion titled ‘Boon, Bane, or Bust: Can our Planet Survive Tech?’ organized by ORF on 28 October at 12.30 pm IST. The discussion is being organized as part of ORF’s ‘Conform or #Cancel’ dialogue.
Humanity's drive to innovate is based on the belief that technologies create a fundamentally better world. However, are new and emerging technologies eating away at our planet? In 2020, ICT accounted for up to 2.3 gigatons CO2eq in global GHG emissions, bitcoin mining consumes enough energy to power entire nations, and global data centre energy use accounts for the equivalent of the electricity consumption of an upper-middle income country like Thailand. How do we make "responsible innovation" a creed rather than just a buzzword? With many entities accused of "greenwashing", what does meaningful change towards lessening the environmental impact of one's operations look like? The session will explore these questions and themes.
The participants at the discussion include Houda Chihi, Founder, ICT Innov-LAB, Tunisia; Rohit Bansal, Group-Level Leader & Group Head of Communications, Reliance Industries Limited, India; Janet Salem, Founder, FootprintLab, Australia; and Subrata Kumar Mitra, Vice President, Head of Government and Industry Relations, Ericsson India Ltd, India.
Register for the event here.