IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 29

Digital Disruptors
Unprecedented
Transparency

Intelligent
Systems

Mass
Collaboration

Work
Together

Mixed
Reality

Climate-Safe
and Equitable

FIGURE 5. Working together to steer digital disruptions. There are systemic risks associated with these disruptors - issues related to

privacy, human dignity, social justice, the future of democracy, and environmental sustainability. We do not know where digital
disruptions will lead society, but with a concerted effort, we believe it is possible to work together to steer these digital disruptors
towards unleashing the societal transformations necessary for a climate-safe and equitable future.

Expand public-private partnerships to build our digital future.
■■ Reduce environmental impacts
of the digital age.
■■ Foster cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation.
■■ Invest in targeted communication, engagement, and education

emerge from both worlds; 3) Seizing the opportunities of the digital
age to drive transformative systems
changes will require transdisci plinary research and innovation
and collaborative actions; 4) Success will depend on overcoming
the digital divide and developing
inclusive strategies that consider
differences among social and cultural contexts. The D^2S Agenda
provides an initial framework for
these ambitious tasks.
The D^2S Agenda initiated a global collaborative process, engaging
over 250 individuals from different
sectors around the world. We need
to continue to expand the circle
and deepen these collaborations.
Steering digital disruptions will
require concerted efforts through
inclusive, interdisciplinary, intersectoral, and community-based
collaborations (Figure 5), including efforts from both private and
public sectors to build sustainable
partnerships. Join us (sustainabilitydigitalage.org)!

■■

The Path Forward
The D^2S Agenda explores the op--
portunities and challenges of leveraging the digital age to tackle the
climate crisis. Four key messages
emerged from the D^2S analysis:
1) There are tremendous opportunities for leveraging the digital age to
drive the transformative systems
changes needed to address the climate crisis, but there are also major
risks; 2) Tackling climate change
and building a just and equitable
digital world are one intertwined
agenda, because humans are in--
terconnected through and dependent on both the natural and digital
worlds and our current trajectory
poses global systemic risks that
JUNE 2020

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IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Acknowledgment
This article provides an overview
of the D^2S Agenda. The full D^2S
Agenda is available online at http://
www.sustainabilitydigitalage.org/ It
contains direct excerpts from the
Agenda, with permission from the
Sustainability in the Digital Age project team who led the development
of the report.
The authors would like to thank
the over 250 people around the
world who helped to create the
D^2S Agenda. In particular, they
thank the Expert Advisory Committee, and the CIFAR AI & Society Workshop participants, and
our partners at the M.I.T. Center
for Collective In--telligence. We also
thank the multiple reviewers of
the Agenda that strengthened the
report. This work was made possible by support of ClimateWorks
Foundation, Fonds de recherche
du Québec (FRQ) for supporting
research, and by CIFAR and Mila
for hosting workshops that shaped
this work.

http://www.sustainabilitydigitalage.org/ http://www.sustainabilitydigitalage.org/ http://sustainabilitydigitalage.org http://sustainabilitydigitalage.org

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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