Public event
This event will be broadcast live on LinkedIn to help attract a broad and engaged audience. This event is free of charge, but registration is required.
In the next online event as part of the Critical conversations series, Academy CEO, Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, will be joined by Professor Ana Basiri, Professor in Geospatial Data Science at the University of Glasgow and Safer End of Engineered Life Champion.
Unlike most engineered products, when digital data reaches the end of its useful life it can be stored indefinitely. In this conversation, we will explore the legal, ethical, and safety challenges created by the immortality of digital data and how the engineering community can address them. The conversation will also look whether ‘digital is always greener’ when data storage and maintenance is energy intensive and has such an environmental impact.
Addressing safety challenges in the decommissioning or disposal of engineered products is part of the Engineering X Safer End of Engineered Life mission.
Recording notice
Please note this event will be recorded and published on the Royal Academy of Engineering website. Your video will be off and your account will be muted throughout the entire event. Only the speakers and presentations will be visible on your screen.
Accessibility
It is very important to the Royal Academy of Engineering that our events are accessible to all. If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact the Events team at events@raeng.org.uk at your earliest convenience so that necessary arrangements can be made.
Professor Ana Basiri
Ana Basiri is a Professor in Geospatial Data Science and a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Ana works on developing solutions that consider missingness and biases as useful sources of data. She leads an interdisciplinary team, funded by UKRI, European Research Council, and Royal Society, and collaborates with world-leading partners, including Google, Ordnance Survey, Uber, Alan Turing Institute. Ana is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Navigation and has received several awards and prizes, including Women Role Model in Science by Alexander Humboldt and European Commission Marie Curie Alumni.
Natasha McCarthy
Natasha McCarthy is Associate Director, National Engineering Policy Centre, at the Royal Academy of Engineering. The National Engineering Policy Centre connects policy makers with critical engineering expertise to inform and respond to policy issues of national importance, giving policymakers a route to advice from across the whole profession. Prior to this, she was Head of Policy at the Royal Society, where she led the Society’s work on data and digital technology, covering issues including the governance of AI and data use, and enabling well-governed access to data. She was previously Head of Policy at the British Academy; Director of Education and subsequently Honorary Lecturer at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy; and began her policy career at the Royal Academy of Engineering. She has a background in philosophy of science and taught at the University of St Andrews. She is author of Engineering: A Beginner’s Guide, a tour of the social, cultural and historical impact of engineering; co-editor of the Springer publication Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process; and has authored several papers spanning engineering, technology, policy and philosophy.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE
Hayaatun is CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. She co-chairs with the Science Minister the government’s Business Innovation Forum and co-chaired with Sir Lewis Hamilton his Commission on improving Black representation in motorsport. She is a trustee of various charities, member of the government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council and Digital Skills Council and NXD at construction company Laing O’Rourke. She has been named as one of the ‘Inspiring 50’ women in tech in Europe and one of the most influential women in both UK engineering and UK tech. She has a Masters in Biochemistry (MBiochem) from Oxford and a PhD from Cancer Research UK/UCL. She is a Fellow of the IET, Honorary Professor at UCL and Honorary Fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford. She has received honorary doctorates from UCL, Imperial College London, Newcastle, Brunel, Huddersfield and Southampton, as well as a Science Suffrage Award and the Engineering Professor’s Council President’s Medal. She was a finalist for the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award and was made a CBE for services to International Engineering in 2019. Prior to her current roles, she was Deputy CEO at the Academy and served as Committee Specialist and later Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee.