Workshop Organisation ‘Towards criteria of sustainability and social meaningfulness in development’
Funded by the Austrian South-East Asian University Partnership Network (ASEA-UNINET), OEAD
Duration: 19.12.2009-21.12.2009
Location: Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Project leaders: Robert M. Bichler, Wolfgang Hofkirchner & Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Project Description:
The objective of the workshop is to discuss current developments in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Sustainable Development (SD) by providing a forum for Austrian and Asian researchers interested in broadening and deepening the understanding of the sustainability concept with the goal to achieve social meaningfulness.
In the discourse on sustainability there has been a shift from a focus on ecological issues towards the inclusion of broader societal issues. The so called ´Agenda 21´ (1992) in the Rio ´Earth Summit´ stated four mutually independent dimensions of sustainability: ecological, economic, social, and cultural. Based on such an understanding in the two days workshop the participants will discuss new operational definitions of ´fuzzy´ terms like sustainability and meaningfulness in the context of ICTs, new measures that distinguish the meaningful from the meaningless (and what lies in between) and the role of ICTs in enhancing sustainable development in the four dimensions proposed in ´Agenda 21´. The involved researchers tend to identify indicators for sustainability and meaningfulness of ICTs and formulate policy recommendations for each dimension.