Keynote Speaker
Professor Jari Porras
LUT University, Finland
Beyond More: Designing Computing for a Sustainable Future
Abstract
The conventional trajectory of computing has largely been defined by more: more processing power, more data, more connectivity, more automation, and more digital services. AI accelerates this trajectory even further. At the same time, computing depends on energy, materials, infrastructure, data centers, and global supply chains, while digital technologies increasingly influence social structures, work, privacy, and human behavior. The future challenge, then, is not simply to make computing more efficient. We need to ask whether we are designing the right digital systems in the first place.
This keynote explores a shift from technology-centered computing to purpose-driven and sustainability-oriented computing. It argues that sustainability must become a design consideration across the entire computing lifecycle — from designing algorithms, software, and hardware to data infrastructures, user experiences, organizational practices, and societal deployment.
About the speaker
Professor Jari Porras is a software engineering professor at LUT University whose research career has evolved from early work in distributed and mobile computing, communications and networking, and pervasive computing to a strong focus over the past decade on sustainable ICT and sustainable software engineering. Building on decades of research into digital technologies, resource efficiency, and software-intensive systems, his work has evolved toward a broader question: how should computing be designed to create sustainable value for people, organizations, and society?
His research connects technical innovation with environmental, economic, technical, social, and human sustainability, emphasizing that sustainability must be considered throughout the computing lifecycle — from algorithms, software, and hardware to data infrastructures, user experiences, organizational practices, and societal deployment. In his keynote, he draws on this research trajectory to challenge the conventional pursuit of more computing and explore a shift toward purpose-driven, sustainability-oriented computing: not simply making computing more efficient but designing the right digital systems for a sustainable future.