The Weight of Digital Waste: Designing for a Sustainable Future

Are your unread emails killing the dolphins?

As our storage of data in the cloud continues to grow exponentially, all those saved e-mails, pictures, audio and video files that form our digital footprint are creating an environmental impact that we’ve only just begun to reckon with. Gartner estimates that the technology industry is responsible for roughly the same level of carbon emissions per year as the aviation industry.

Will our abundant use of email and cheap file storage become as destructive to our planet as the plastic bags clogging the oceans and suffocating precious resources?

How might we understand and mitigate the impacts of digital waste created in our daily lives?

In this hand-on, interactive session hosted by The SIX, let’s explore this question and prototype bold new solutions. Using mindsets and techniques from Design Thinking, Google Design Sprints and Six Sigma we will:

- Cover the basics of the 5-Day Design Sprint process: Map/Sketch/Decide/Prototype/Test
- Develop a user journey map to understand how and when we create digital waste
- Develop a severity matrix to assess the biggest impacts and pain pains of our digital footprint
- Ideate and prototype solutions
- Discuss user research options to validate solutions

This event is part of our efforts to support and bring awareness to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. In September 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years.

For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and people like us!

Want to learn more and get involved? Check out the list of actions that you can take in your everyday life to contribute to a sustainable future on the UN website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/takeaction/

A nominal fee of $5 signals your commitment to attend. Refreshments will be provided.