Almost one year, some news

Dear All,

After almost a year it's time to give you some news of the Web We Can
Afford initiative.

Most if not all of these news are related to what you may call "outreach
activities".

- First, I did participate in the "Transition squared" initiative between
Inria and FING (a French digital think tank). Its goal was to confront the
digital and ecological transitions (an ambition that is at the heart of
this group - though I'd rather talk of "collapse" that mere "transition" as
regards the environment). It was a nice opportunity to meet with many
like-minded researchers at Inria (something I didn't expect to be honest).

- I did a presentation around the same topic in June, in front of all the
Inria researchers in Sophia Antipolis, which was very well received. You
can find here: http://www.slideshare.net/aamonnz/transition-numrique-
et-effondrement-cologique-quel-monde-daprs I was able to reuse some slides
from Vincent Mignerot who's the president of the Adrastia association and
an partner of the WWCA initiative, thank you Vincent!

It was later delivered in front of students of various ages/origins and
always led to interesting reactions/discussions.

- I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to submitted an ERC
Starting Grant project in October. Without going into too much details,
let's say that it revolves around many of the topics tackled by this group.
The research accomplished over the last year to prepare for the submission
will certainly inform my future work.

- I was invited to a meeting organized by all the French actors involved in
eco-webdesign in October. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend it but the
important thing is that It was the first time such an event was organized.
Though it is more akin to green IT, which is not exactly was this group is
about, eco-design should play a role when it comes to designing a Web "fit"
for the Anthropocene. I hope there are more similar meetings to come.

- Thanks to the nice feedback I got after my presentation at Inria, a
colleague of mine, Emmanuel Prados, head of the STEEP Inria team in
Grenoble (STEEP stands for "Sustainability, Environment, Economy and local
Policy"), was invited to deliver a presentation of the notion of "collapse"
in November. You can find his slides here:  https://project.inria.fr/mast
ic/cafe-in-10-novembre-comprendre-les-phenomenes-deffondreme
nt-de-societes-quel-avenir-pour-la-notre/ (at the bottom of the page).

- A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at an event that did associate
for the first time a handful of laboratories of excellency" (Labex)
dedicated to smart technologies. I discussed the future of these
technologies (and digital tech in general) in my presentation, which you
can find here: http://www.slideshare.net/aamonnz/a-quoi-peuvent-servir-
les-technologies-smart-en-regard-dune-vision-raliste-de-
lavenir-et-de-lenvironnement

During my stay I had the opportunity to talk to Michael Matlosz who's the
CEO of the french National Agency for Research (ANR).

The discussion that ensued after my keynote was very interesting. It was
nice to see that people shared the same concerns and conclusions (without
always knowing what to do next or how to integrate them in their daily
activities and work - an important point to keep in mind).

- Finally, I'm currently writing a small text that will appear on a blog
edited by IT researchers (http://binaire.blog.lemonde.fr/) in order to
popularize the topic.



OK, if you've read my message up to this point, thank you very much ;)

Now, it's time to take one further step by organizing a workshop dedicated
to the WWCA. In my opinion, WebScience 2017 would be a nice venue as well
as this conference: http://comtech.community/workshops/ Although, I haven't
seen the CfP of WebSciecnce  to be honest (has anyone in the group some
news about it?).

So, please tell me if you'd agree to be on the PC of that workshop and/or
if you have other people in mind that we should ask.

Many thanks!

All the best,
A.