In the ongoing Digital Transition, innovation is widely seen and often hailed as a crucial factor. Both in policy and science, however, the understanding of innovation is commonly rather (over)simplified as linear cause-effect of new technological inventions. Even more recent and more subtle “ecosystem” models of innovation suffer from techno-solutionism, the belief that societal problems can be solved by technological means.
In his talk, Akkermans will argue that innovation is better understood as a specific type of Complex Adaptive System that he dubs “technosociality.” As leading examples and cases of innovation he will address: (1) smart electricity grids and the Energy Transition; (2) the regreening initiatives in Africa’s drylands such as the Sahel; (3) the Digital Transition itself, whereby the original Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have morphed into technologies of governance, i.e. also into instruments of power, control and domination. Finally, he will address a few aspects of the needed democratization of technology.
Hans Akkermans is Professor Emeritus of Business Informatics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Network Institute in Amsterdam. His current research interests focus on the interdisciplinary research, education, and community service program W4RA (Web alliance for Regreening in Africa), and the associated issues of the digital divide. Akkermans is an initiator and executive board member of the EU project EURIDICE and a steering committee member of the Digital Humanism Initiative. He holds a cum laude PhD in theoretical physics in the field of nuclear reactions from the University of Groningen.
IWM Permanent Fellow Ludger Hagedorn will moderate the discussion.
