Urenio Watch Watch: Collective Intelligence

Energy Communities An overview of energy and social innovation

This report is providing an overview of the activities, organisation and implications of energy communities as participants across the energy system. It identifies them as contiguous processes of both the energy transition and social innovation. Paths for future policy implications and research initiatives are analysed and informed. The European Commission’ s Clean Energy for All Europeans Package is stated as the indicator of the role prosumers and their collective forms will play in the future energy system. Continue reading

Like Smart Cities, Smart Farms pose their own challenges

In several countries, such as Canada, a digital revolution like the one that created smart cities, is affecting farms. Technology is starting to transform farms and farming. Not only the vast, industrial-scale factory farms, but also small and organic farms. As in the case of smart cities, this technology provides significant benefits, but also creates significant challenges.

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New book: Geographies of Disruption

This new book Geographies of Disruption: Place Making for Innovation in the Age of Knowledge Economy, written by Tan Yigitcanlar and Tommi Inkinen, provides a timely contribution to the literature on the geography of innovation. Providing a detailed set of case studies on the evolving dimensions of the knowledge economy across Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania, it focuses on the importance of place making for the emergence and spread of knowledge-based economies.

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Artificial Intelligence: A European Perspective

AI report EU_coverThis report presents a European view of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based on independent research and analysis by the European Commission Joint Research Centre to inform the debate at the European level. Shedding light on the opportunities as well as challenges emerging from the recent developments in AI, this report attempts to outline the way towards building a human-centred, diverse, and socially driven AI. Continue reading

New Report: Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development

frontier_technologiesThe World Economic and Social Survey 2018 reviews the advances in frontier technologies ‘“ automation, robotics, electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence ‘“ and analyses their economic, social and environmental impact.   Advances in frontier technologies present new and unique challenges. While promising prosperity, these technologies also present risks of growing unemployment, underemployment and inequality, and raise new ethical and moral challenges. Continue reading

Developing innovation portfolios for the public sector

developing innovation portfolios for the public sector deloitteThe article “Developing innovation portfolios for the public sector: Portfolios for public good’ by Holden A., Cassidy J., Hallberg K. and Marsh W. published on Deloitte Insights examines how can a public sector organization reap the rewards of investing in truly transformational innovation efforts while mitigating the accompanying risks. In the article is argued that the answer could lie in managing innovation as a portfolio of investments that balances risk and reward. Continue reading