Technology and Innovation
This can range from fostering innovation within our own sector, to getting creative and adopting new technologies traditionally confined to other sectors, such as FinTech solutions.
Recognizing that new thinking can advance sustainability, the United Nations opted to dedicate Sustainable Development Goal 9 to building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation.
Here at IISD, we are exploring how certain innovative technologies such as Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain, originally embraced by the banking sector to increase the effectiveness of its business, could be adopted by the environmental and sustainable development sectors.

We are especially interested in how those who work on freshwater stewardship can look to these technologies to do everything from monitoring water usage, water flow and the contaminants that enter our lakes, to the movement of boats potentially carrying zebra mussels.
We are now looking to use AI technologies to reimagine how IISD Experimental Lakes Area uses its over 50-year dataset to understand the future of its lakes set against the backdrop of a changing climate.
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Experts

Geoffrey Gunn
Policy Advisor – Data and Technology

Scott Higgins
Research Scientist, IISD-ELA

Matthew McCandless
Senior Director, Fresh Water & Executive Director, IISD-ELA

Michael Paterson
Senior Research Scientist, IISD-ELA

Michael Rennie
Research Fellow, IISD-ELA

Joey Simoes
Hydrologist

Madeline Stanley
Project Officer
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