Digitalization for a Sustainable Society: Embodied, Embedded, Networked, Empowered through Information, Computation & Cognition!

Our global society becomes increasingly data–information– knowledge based. This is often called “digitalization” or “digital society”. What does digitalization mean for us as individuals, as societies and on a global scale, how does it affect our lives? Mobile devices, cloud computing, envisioned ”internet of things” and “internet of everything” have already started to generate what is commonly called “big data”. Intelligent objects speaking for themselves, communicating with each other are being developed to create “cyber physical systems” of “communicating things” – in the production, transportation and other infrastructures, in the city as a whole (“intelligent city”) and at home (“intelligent homes”).

What will be the human’s role in this emerging “digital” society? The social and technological innovations that are intended to boost cognition, communication and co-operation are ambiguous: their potential to advance information commons is not fully exploited. A breakthrough to a global, sustainable information society must establish an information commons as a cornerstone of a new programme for coping with the challenges of the information age.