SICT 2026 abstract
Connecting Visions
The ICT sector plays a contradictory role in shaping sustainable
futures. While technologies promise optimisation, dematerialisation, and
access to knowledge, are also driving economic division, extractivism,
rebound effects, disinformation, and surveillance. These ambivalent
positions of ICT act as both a contributor to and a potential mitigator
of the overlapping ecological and social crises we face.
We aim to explore these tensions across planetary and societal
boundaries - from the environmental cost of digital infrastructure to
the erosion of public trust and democratic processes. We'll look at how
technological optimism can delay climate action and how narratives of
open source and AI are being co-opted to sustain business-as-usual.
These complex issues require interdisciplinary thinking, blending
different approaches and connecting visions.
Building Resilient Futures
The SustainableICT Winter School is an interdisciplinary event that
emphasises learning and doing. It includes lectures, panels and
interactive workshops. Throughout the week, academics, politicians,
artists, and activists will come together to analyse and challenge the
usage and effects of ICT across the globe.
We will start by examining the past, how ICT was built and integrated in
the world around us. We will then dissect the present relationship
between technology, politics, and the economy. Finally, we will end the
week by drawing the line between ICT and social injustice, as well
exploring ways of dealing with the consequences - to build a more
resilient future.
We invite people from diverse communities, academic fields, the industry
and arts to come together for a five-day English language winter school
from the 26th to the 30th of January 2026, held at Université Libre de
Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
