Smart Cities – Really Smart or Just Digital?

oikos Alumni Debate on “Smart Cities” announced

The way we live in cities is drastically changing. Under the rubric Smart City innovative technologies rebuild the foundations of housing, mobility and energy. That’s why oikos Associate Christoph Rappitsch has chosen the future of urban living as one research focus. In just a few weeks, on November 15, he will moderate a panel of distinguished oikos alumni in Zurich.

Indeed, the future of cities seems bright: In our homes, smart devices automatically turn off for the purpose of energy preservation. Within the smart grid, power station produce and store green energy and cut emissions, while smart meters meticulously collect client data and let energy producers optimize their supply. Electric cars communicate with each other to reduce traffic jams and accidents, while at night they function as big, mobile batteries for the grid.

In spite of all the great promises of Smart Cities, one should not forget the potential drawbacks. Could life in a Smart City lead to a lack of privacy and 24/7 surveillance? Would hackers be able to control whole power stations and cause a blackout for days? And what about the environmental impacts of constantly updating the soft- and hardware components of the smart infrastructure? And where are the opportunities for the city to become smart – and not just digital?

These questions will be the vantage point of the upcoming alumni debate. To discuss the opportunities and drawbacks of Smart Cities we are delighted to host the following oikos Alumni as panelists:

Annette Kern Ulmer (Head Strategic Projects, ewz; oikos St. Gallen)
Ronny Kaufmann (CEO, SwissPower; oikos St. Gallen)
José Ibarra (Independent consultant; oikos Lausanne)

Moderation:
Christoph Rappitsch (oikos Associate on Digital Economy and Sustainability; oikos Vienna)

Time, data and place: November 15, 2016 at 6pm at LGT Venture Philanthropy, Zurich. To register click here.

For questions email Christoph Rappitsch.

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oikos International

posted October 27, 2016

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Energy Storage, the Future? Not in Switzerland

Leading voices from the Swiss energy sector came together on October 21st at the University of St. Gallen for the annual oikos Conference, hosted and organized by oikos St. Gallen.

The topic of the one-day event: Energy Storage Solutions for the Future. To the surprise of the audience, which comprised oikos members and alumni, as well as faculty and students from major Swiss universities, the experts quickly agreed that energy storages will not play a major role in Switzerland in the near future: The grid is simply too good. Instead of storing homegrown electricity in local batteries, energy can flow freely to large-scale solutions like pump storage plants. This is made possible by the circular design of the grid, that not only delivers but has the potential to pick up energy at households.

Nevertheless, the experts from Siemens, the energy suppliers of Zurich ewz, its equivalent for the region of St. Gallen and SwissPower, an industry association, had great insights into what may be the use of energy storage. While Siemens sees most potential in large scale batteries used by businesses and industry, the local electricity and energy suppliers already experiment with solutions on the household and community level. This contrasting approach to harvesting the new technologies – like sustainable energy sources, batteries have become cheaper and more efficient – was reflected in the case studies presented to the students.

Both Siemens and ewz challenged the present students with a case. While the technical expertise among the management students was expectedly narrow, the groups came up with interesting solutions.

The conference was concluded by a high-level panel, which included National Council Member and SP floor leader Roger Nordmann, as well as Sonja Lüthi, local politician for the Green Party and energy expert, Gianni Operto, industry old hand and president of an association promoting renewables and energy efficiency, and Doris Schmack, a longstanding researcher and currently head of the MicrobEnergy project.

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oikos International

posted October 26, 2016

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Panel Discussion: “Waste – valuable source or heap of rubbish?”

“Waste – valuable source or heap of rubbish?”, join panel discussion organized by oikos Bratislava, on 24.10.2016 at 17:00 in the old building of the University of Economics in room D211.

Read more information in Slovak here

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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oikos Francophone Meeting

The weekend of October 21 to 23, french speaking oikos chapters will meet in Brussels for the first edition of the Francophone Meeting.

Read more information in French here

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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oikos & Pizza

Join oikos St Gallen at their oikos & Pizza with a great food waste start up.

More information in German here.

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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oikos Discuss & Do: Clothing

In the first meeting of oikos Hamburg’s new event series “oikos discuss & do” everything revolves around the sustainable use of clothing.

Read more information in German here

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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Information event

Get to know oikos Hamburg and hear more about oikos projects.

Read more about the event in German here

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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oikos Winter School

The Winter School “You call it Eco. We call it Common Sense. Sustainability in the Fashion Industry” takes place from 5.-11. March 2017 in Witten.

Read more information on oikos Winter School website.

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oikos International

posted October 20, 2016

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oikos At The Humanistic Management Conference with Jeffrey D. Sachs

“The rules of the game need to change. Current management and business education are promoting an economy that works not for 100 % of humanity, but only for the top 1 %.”

This was the underlying tune of the Humanistic Management Conference that took place on October 13th and 14th, with more than 60 passionate people from around the world. The conference was organized by the Humanistic Management Network in cooperation with the hosting institution, the Weltethos-Institut in Tübingen, Germany. Part of the organizing committee was oikos Alumnus and now Professor for Management Systems, Michael Pirson (Fordham University, New York).

To change the rules of the economy, members of the Network had founded the Consortium “Leading for Well-Being”. For more than a year, the consortium had co-created a memorandum draft, named the “Meadows Memorandum” after the pioneering environmentalist Donella Meadows, which laid out the pathway to a new economic paradigm. And it was up to the participants of this conference to add their diverse perspective to this draft.

On the first day the Weltethos-Institute’s director, Claus Dierksmeier, began with a keynote on the concept of “Qualitative Freedom”. Opposed to the notion that freedom could be measured quantitatively, reflected in the number of viable options whilst ignoring the qualitative features of these options, qualitative freedom takes into account that some freedoms can be of greater importance than others – say the freedom to elect political leaders over the freedom to drive as fast as one wants. Dierksmeier summed up his concept by reminding the audience that in terms of freedoms it should not be “the more, the better”, but rather “the better, the more”. Three panels gave insights of how an economy that works for virtually everyone – a rather lofty thought – could be conceived, both in academia and in practice.

In workshops spanning the two days, the participants – including a range of student representatives from different initiatives (amongst them ISIPE, VivaConAgua and the Economy of the Common Good Network) – worked on the memorandum draft.

On the afternoon of the second day it was time for the second keynote. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Senior Advisor to the UN and the Secretary General, took the time to address the assembly on “Globalization – in the Name of which freedom?”. Sachs started with a comprehensive look back into the history of globalization to amplify the role that growth and trade played in the incredible rise of humanity. But he also stressed that with the benefits that a selected group of people had received from trade came also the responsibility to now spread the positive effects of growth and trade more evenly and justly. For Sachs, the era of growth is clearly not over, but its potential should be solely directed towards development, empowerment and to further human capabilities in regions of dire poverty. He wished for more concerted efforts in a systematic framework as opposed to programs with limited spatial and temporal scope.

Sachs’ speech, both bound to reality and full of urgency and optimism, was the final note to an extremely insightful conference, for which we would like to thank the Humanistic Management and the Weltethos-Institut.

See more of what occurred by following the Weltethos-Institute’s Twitter account.

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oikos International

posted October 17, 2016

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Global Change Award by the H&M foundation

What if we could reinvent fashion?
What if we could make a shift from “take-make-waste” to a fashion world where the is no waste?
What materials would we use? What would the processes and business models look like?

Join oikos Lausanne conference if you have game changing ideas that can make fashion circular.

Read more information here

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oikos International

posted October 13, 2016

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