The PhD defence will be partially digital, in Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus and streamed directly using Zoom. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation.
Ex auditorio questions: the chair of the defence will invite the attending audience at Kristen Nygaards sal to ask ex auditorio questions.
Trial lecture
Time and place: April 4, 2024 08:15 AM, Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus/ Zoom
Main research findings
Consider the most sustainable mobile phone to sit in your pocket. If you ever wondered about its design, production, and ‘consumption’ during useful life, it may have dawned to you how the next should be like. Can perhaps our favourite electronic device be perceived as enabling solution in the transition to sustainable futures? Yes, yet first, it should be considered as fully implicated in unsustainable ‘business as usual’, addictive digitalisation, and eventual electronic waste generation! This dissertation has explored design rethinking the sustainability of mobile phones, aiming for designerly answers that support longevity, circularity and countering the phenomenon of premature obsolescence. This sociotechnical phenomenon’s characteristics are presented alongside suggestions of how phones ought to be designed regarding use-practice, materiality, and business model innovations. This futuring with critical intent sought for synergies, cumulative, concerted (re)solutions that match lifetime expectations and lead to zero-waste. The research serves to inform, inspire, and guide sustainable design practice and education, incorporating design knowledge of material science. The purpose is to create a next generation “technology at our fingertip” that is changed and changes ‘by design’. This can drive desirable future innovation and open up for technology adoption discourse in relation to social, environmental, and economic sustainability targets.
Adjudication committee
- Professor Cameron Tonkinwise, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
- Professor Ursula Tischner, Ecoconcept, Germany
- Associate Professor Jasmin Niess, Dept. of informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Supervisors
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Professor Maja van der Velden, Department of Informatics, UiO
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Professor Alma Culen, Department of Informatics, UIO
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Associate Professor Miria Grisot, Department of Informatics, UiO
Chair of defence:
Contact information at Department: Mozhdeh Sheibani Harat