Panel debate

Panel debate: Images of the future

Panelists:

• Elin Bergman, Corporate partnerships, World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF)
• John Howchin, Secretary General, The Ethical Council of the Swedish Pension Funds
• Somya Joshi, Senior lecturer, Dept. of Computer & Systems Science, Stockholm University
• Maria Normark, Senior lecturer in Media Technology, Södertörn University

Content: Course participants have been presented with a variety of images of the future. This lecture won't be a lecture at all, but rather a discussion between invited guests who are expected to have widely differing ideas and opinions about the future, and about the future of sustainability. Can we imagine a future sustainable society? What would it look like? What are our chances and what is our best course of action in attempting to reach that future? Furthermore, what is the role of ICT and media in relation to these questions and issues? 

Elin Bergman is the chairman of the board of the circular economy network "Cradlenet" and she is responsible for corporate partnerships at WWF Sweden. Cradlenet is a non-profit network that promotes the benefits of moving towards a circular economy aimed towards the business sector through ICT-channels and by organising events. At WWF Sweden she is in charge of coordination, implementation and communication of the organisation's corporate engagements. Elin has worked in the sustainability and social responsibility sector since 2007 at Stockholms Stadsmission and at the sustainability consultants Respect and Tricorona. Prior to that she worked in the entertainment sector for the computer games and movie industry at Massive Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games and Twentieth Century Fox.  Elin holds a Bachelor degree in Culture, Society, Media production from Linköping University.

John Howchin is Secretary General of the Ethical Council for the First, Second, Third and Fourth Swedish national pension funds. He is in charge of strategy, research and coordination of corporate engagement of the Council. John is also a member of the asset management committee at Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. John has worked with socially responsible investments and corporate social responsibility since 1998. Prior to joining the Ethical Council he worked as senior analyst at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) in Oslo, Norway, where he was in charge of the environmental strategy. Previous positions include five years at GES Investment Services as deputy CEO and Head of research. He also co-founded Green Index who produced the Folksam climate change index, the first of its kind when released in 2000 and has also worked with sustainability management at the Swedish/Swiss company ABB. John holds a BSc in environmental science and human ecology at Goteborg University.

Somya Joshi is a research scientist with expertise in the field of ICT when applied to Social Inclusion & Sustainability. Her specialisation falls within the applied context of technological innovation, particularly in how it translates into transparency in governance, environmental conservation and health services within the developing world. She has experience working with a range of partners from academia, industry, NGOs, as well as international development organisations towards the common goal of facilitating inclusive development. Currently, Somya is a Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow at eGovernance-Lab at the Department of Computer & Systems Science (DSV) at Stockholm University. She is responsible for course development and teaching in two Masters programs - ICT4D (ICT for Development) and Open Governance & e-Democracy. She is also teaching an Undergraduate course on Participatory Design and HCI with a specific focus on Sustainability.

Maria Normark is a senior lecturer in Media Technology at Södertörn University since 2006. Her main interests are collaboration in practice, design quality and norm-critical design in several domains; youth counseling online, sustainable lifestyle and art/theatre. Normark earlier held a 3-year VinnMER Fellowship and was during this period a visiting researcher at Mobile Life VINN Excellent Centre i Kista. One of the main projects was ‘EcoFriends’, the development of a prototype app that dealt with changed practices concerning buying seasonal food. Her current project, ‘Sustainable Communities through Digital Design’ is financed by the Baltic Sea Foundation and concerns urban farming and digital design. Urban farming makes a suitable case for investigating how values and ideas are shared, communicated and reproduced through digital platforms.