Issues in focus
Sustainability in a digital society
The developments of digitalisation are the greatest technical challenges of our time. At the same time, we must be careful to make our technology and our actions sustainable. Are digitalisation and sustainability opposites? Or can new technologies such as artificial intelligence even contribute to making our lives more sustainable? Is technical progress perhaps even the only answer to climate change? This dossier deals with these questions and offers an overview of the future-friendly development of our digital society.
Tilman Santarius
Making digitalisation work for the climate
Armin Nassehi
Digitalisation as a solution?
Stephen Graham
Urban digital infrastructures
Artificial and intelligent but also sustainable?
Despite the growing global interest in mitigating climate change and in the digital transformation, there is often still a lack of implementation expertise on how these "instruments" can best be...
How Conspiracy Theorists Get the Scientific Method Wrong
Philipp Hübl on the characteristics of conspiracy theories the motivation behind their spread, and rational thought as a shield against it.
Beyond Silicon Valley
The Internet, it is often said, provides equal access to knowledge and to markets. It opens up new opportunities for economic success and prosperity in disadvantaged regions or even continents,…
Digital Social Innovation: from efficiency to effectiveness in digitalisation
How can technology help organisations to more effectively tackle societal challenges? In this article we introduce the concept of effectiveness in digitalisation, which, we believe, is key to any digitalisation…
Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability
An interview with Martin Wimmer How does effective climate protection work and how can we transform towards more sustainable ways of living and making business? AI technologies are increasingly being discussed…
Social Purpose Organisations and Digitalisation: Towards an Inclusive and Sustainable Transformation
Organisations pursuing social and or environmental goals are different from corporations. Rather than maximising on profits, they pursue multiple social, environmental, and economic goals simultaneously. They marshal local, underused resources…
The transfer of AI-expertise in to sustainable business models
The transfer of research results into functioning innovative business models is an important lever to make Germany a leading AI location. The EXIST funding programs support founders from the university…
Energizing the energy future
What if the entire progress of society depends on the future energy system? At least that’s how visionaries like Jeremy Rifkin argue. The list of challenges posed by the energy…
The politics behind the Smart City
Modern cities depend largely on invisible infrastructures. The much-hyped ‘Smart Cities’ promise to digitise the urban – but what happens when they fail? How do we make sure that cities…
