DIPF member and GREAT project manager, Dr. Jane Yau, is also a member of the Global Young Academy (2022-27), where its mission is giving a voice to young scientists around the world. In 2022-2023, she was the co-editor of the Connections Magazine, which is an annual magazine of the Global Young Academy, featuring peer-reviewed articles of its members. This year’s magazine explores the theme “Innovative Technologies for improved well-being”. The magazine is additionally circulated at working events attended by the Global Young Academy office team, for example, those organised by The World Academy of Sciences and European Young Academies etc. As co-Editor-at-Large, Jane also wrote an article about “Technological innovations for advancing quality education, gender equality and climate action”. The following excerpt has been taking from the article.
Quality Education -> Technological innovations such as mobile technologies have the potential to bridge the educational gaps as 1) they offer high-quality educational digital resources, thereby replacing the need for print documents; 2) they enable teacher-capacity building and networking; 3) they enhance students’ digital literacy; and 4) they aid in the sharing of cultural knowledge.
Gender Equality -> Technological innovations such as open science have the potential to empower both citizens and scientists in a number of ways, for example, 1) Open Science methods and data sharing beyond borders allow higher-quality data and analytical tools to be utilised; 2) interdisciplinary groups of scientists can work and network effectively to solve global pressing issues and allow many wider dissemination activities across continents; 3) more efficient and effective science communication can take place using sophisticated and professional social media channels; 4) the next generation of science leaders can be mentored remotely, and 5) addressing gender and other inequalities within science subjects and careers.
Climate Action -> The advancement of mobile games with state-of- the-art data analytics allows citizens’ opinions, attitudes and preferences to be captured and transferred to rele- vant policy-makers, with the intention of influencing them to make climate policies that are even more closely matched to citizens’ needs. This has the potential to advance SDG 13 (Climate Action). The innovation of mobile games (which have the potential to reach millions of citizens globally) and whether these can be used to facilitate an effective communication channel between citizens and policy-makers in the context of climate emergency, is currently under investigation in the GREAT Project.
- Yau, J. & Mestrovic, T. (eds) (2023) GYA Connections “Innovative Technologies for Improved Well-Being”, Issue 11. Halle (Saale), Germany: Global Young Academy at the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26164/GYA_00799