Upcoming activities
| Date | Details |
| Feb, 2023 | Opening of applications for the 2023-2024 LEADS training Students and PhDs from McGill University, Concordia, Université de Montréal and UQAM will be able to apply to this special program on Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability. |
| Mar 15, 2023 | LEADS panel during Concordia’s sustainability conference LEADS trainees will talk about their research and share their vision for the future during a panel discussion that will be livestreamed on YouTube. |
| Apr 19, 2023 | Web 3.0, ally or enemy of the fight against global warming? This workshop co-organized by LEADS and HEC will tackle the question of digitalization in an era of climate change. LEADS trainees will be confronted with the vision of a group of French students invited by HEC Montreal. |
| May 10-24, 2023 | LEADS summer school A course offering a window into the wealth of digital tools that can be applied in sustainability science research: from artificial intelligence and big data to social media and digital communication. |
Past activities
| Date | Details |
| Oct 9, 2020 | LEADS Mini-Symposium LIEN-D Launch of the CREATE LEADS program, presentations of co-PIs’ research, introductions of students and breakout discussions of visions for the program and leadership. |
| Dec 9, 2020 | Speaker Series with David Rolnick on machine learning and climate change This talk provided an overview of opportunities and challenges in applying machine learning to tackle climate change, presented by Sustainability in the Digital Age co-Scientific Director David Rolnick, with co-PI Catherine Potvin as discussant. |
| Jan 28, 2021 | Leadership Training Workshop with Elena Bennett This workshop kicked off the leadership training. It was hosted by co-PI Elena Bennett, who first led a roundtable of which leaders we admire and why, then an interactive HBDI exercise on our own leadership qualities and the value of having diverse qualities in a team, followed by a presentation on individual vs collective leadership and two different frameworks for thinking about collective leadership. |
| Feb 25, 2021 | Speaker Series with Cecile Bulle and Anders Bjorn on Life Cycle Assessments and Tools This talk was on Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), given by Prof. Cécile Bulle (co-PI) and Dr Anders Bjørn. First Dr Bulle introduced the concept of LCA, including the LCA of digital tools and examples of existing resources and software. Then Dr Bjørn introduced the concept of absolute sustainability, including examples of science-based targets in organizational LCAs. This was then followed by a Q&A. |
| Mar 25, 2021 | Open-source scientific software with Lindsey Heagy Dr Heagy provided an overview of the growing open-source scientific software ecosystem and discussed some examples of how it is enabling open, collaborative science. She provided examples of large collaborative projects in climate science and resources developed for humanitarian projects to locate groundwater in water-stressed regions of the world. This was followed by a Q&A session. |
| Apr 22, 2021 | Leadership Training 2 with Eliane Ubalijoro In this second leadership training, Eliane Ubalijoro, Executive Director of Sustainability in the Digital Age and Director of Future Earth’s Global Hub in Canada, presented and asked the students to reflect on leadership qualities in uncertain times, time management, our values, our heroes and sheroes, and more. |
| May 17, 2021 | LEADS summer school From artificial intelligence and big data to social media and digital communication, the digital age offers both challenges and tremendous potential to accelerate the societal transformations that are needed to meet global sustainability goals. Through a series of lectures and interactive activities, this course will offer a window into the wealth of digital tools that can be applied in sustainability science research. |
| Sep 22, 2021 | Sustainability in Digital Age National Dialogue Series Three national public town halls organized by Sustainability in the Digital Age, preceded by a ThoughtExchange exercise for each of them to consult the public about digital actions for sustainability. These events explored how digital innovation could help Canada achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. |
| Oct 5, 2021 | LEADS Mini-Symposium LIEN-D Launch of the 2nd year of the LEADS CREATE program through presentations of co-PIs’ and year-1 students’ research, followed by breakout discussion to allow participants to introduce themselves, provide feedback on the program for returning members, and share their visions for the program. The idea of a trainee committee emerged from that event. |
| Nov 3, 2021 | « Perspectives énergétiques canadiennes 2021 – Horizon 2060 » : Quand la carboneutralité change tout! Our co-applicant Dr. Normand Mousseau presented the report on the energy outlook for Canada’s achievement of carbon neutrality by 2060. He presented the results of modelling of the Canadian energy system which analyzes courses of action possible ways to achieve net zero GHG emissions in Canada and assess the cost and impact of these various pathways. |
| Nov 30, 2021 | Climate Displacement and Indigenous Responses In this panel discussion event, Indigenous Elders of the Nlaka’pamux Nation of BC, Mandy Jimmie and John Haugen, will discuss the impacts of the Lytton fire on their communities and Indigenous community responses to the fire, in conversation with Jen Gobby, post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University. |
| Dec 13, 2021 | Global Risks Perceptions Report 2021 Launch Future Earth, Sustainability in the Digital Age and the International Science Council shared the findings of the second iteration of the Global Risks Scientists’ Perceptions survey. Given the manifestations of global risks which have taken place over the last year, the time was ripe to reassess scientists’ perceptions of global risks as a critical contribution to dialogues about potential solutions. |
| Jan 20, 2022 | Building feminist and anticolonial technologies in compromised spaces Dr. Max Liboiron presented their anti-colonial research methods in a wide array of disciplines such as plastic pollution in indigenous communities, with an emphasis on feminist movements. They also presented some of their art, and acknowledged the difficult times communities are facing in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Mar 8, 2022 | Tracking Real time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions: How remote sensing, artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing how we approach the climate crisis Dr. Aaron Davitt presented how Climate TRACE is used to track GHG emission in real time and helped create a GHG database in various sectors from 2015 to 2020. Climate TRACE is a global coalition of NGOs, tech companies, and academia, that harnesses recent technological advances to improve emissions monitoring. Aaron Davitt is a remote sensing analyst. |
| Apr 28, 2022 | LEADS Leadership Training Workshop Leadership training 2-day workshop led by Margaret Krebs from the Earth Leadership Program. LEADS offers graduate students the opportunity to explore skills and frameworks beyond their discipline-specific training. Given the increased trend toward interdisciplinary collaborations, the need to address this challenge is beneficial for the professional development of emerging researchers. |
| May 2, 2022 | LEADS summer school From artificial intelligence and big data to social media and digital communication, the digital age offers both challenges and tremendous potential to accelerate the societal transformations that are needed to meet global sustainability goals. Through a series of lectures and interactive activities, this course will offer a window into the wealth of digital tools that can be applied in sustainability science research. |
| May 12, 2022 | ThoughtExchange Workshop and Future Earth Value Proposition Students received training in the use of the ThoughtExchange platform as a tool to solicit input from participants on targeted questions. The students developed questions related to how digital technologies could be used to further research and collaboration related to the Future Earth research networks, used the ThoughtExchange tool to develop their ideas and presented their value proposition to the Future Earth team. |
| Jun 7, 2022 | Will technology save us? Prospects for effective and equitable responses to the climate crisis. Panel discussion around the use of technology to solve the climate crisis. The climate crisis will require many different types of solutions across all aspects of life. This event considered and discussed many options on the table, from social justice and economic norms to advanced technologies and climate engineering. The panel offered opinions from some of the leading thinkers in these areas. |
| Oct 19, 2022 | LEADS Mini-Symposium LIEN-D Launch of the 3rd year of the LEADS CREATE program with research presentations from co-PIs, collaborators (new and returning), and returning trainees, followed by a social lunch. As usual, the event was open to the public and hosted in hybrid mode. Some of the highlight presentations for that event were the playing of artistic videos of forests created by our collaborator Dr. Leila Sujir and her student. |
| Nov 30, 2022 | SDA Concordia University Think Tank Launch Launch of the Sustainability in the Digital Age Concordia University Think Tank, the first of its kind at Concordia University. The event explored what that meant, and how it will impact their mission to be a bridge between sustainability science and digital innovation to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Presenters included Éliane Ubalijoro, Damon Matthews, and Jason Lewis. |
| Feb 15-16, 2023 | 2023 Leadership workshop: Collective Leadership and science communication A two-day workshop where our LEADS trainees discover how to connect leadership and story-making for effective communication within differing world-views. Read about the workshop: https://sustainabilitydigitalage.org/featured/storytelling-and-science-two-worlds-one-vision/ |