For the high-flex option, register in advance. You will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Title:
Responsibly anticipating the impacts of engineering and technology

Abstract:
There is increasing demand to anticipate the consequences of future technologies and, in turn, prevent harm to social, environmental, and economic systems by and through them. Responsible anticipation, one of the four dimensions of Responsible Innovation (RI), is “the forward-looking activity of asking “what if…” questions…to consider contingency, what is known, what is likely, what is plausible and what is possible” within the context of the innovation process (Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten, 2013). Over the past decade, science and technology studies (STS) and engineering ethics educators have engaged with responsible anticipation as a framework for extending ethical conversations in creative and critical contexts (Stone et al., 2020; van Grunsven et al., 2023). Responsible anticipation prompts awareness as to how the act of anticipating (from situated perspectives) frames how society assesses the social acceptability of an emerging technology, while also aiming to ensure that there is engagement with the feasibility of technical functionalities, enough so to make realistic speculations. This seminar will introduce this framework and discuss examples of how we have integrated it into engineering, data science, and cross-disciplinary technology courses and workshops.

Biography:
Dr. Alexi Orchard is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Technology and Digital Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her teaching areas include technology and engineering ethics, responsible innovation, critical and speculative design, and technical writing and communication. Her related research has been published at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, AAAI Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence, and Journal of Responsible Innovation. In 2024, she was an Alumni Gold Medal Finalist for outstanding academic achievement in her PhD dissertation, titled “Interdisciplinary Pedagogy for Ethical Engineering and Responsible Innovation,” at the University of Waterloo. Recent

Publications:
Orchard, A., & O’Gorman, M. (2024). Fostering responsible innovation with critical design methods. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 11(1), 2318823. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2024.2318823

Orchard, A. (2024). The Innovation Problem Finder Dartboard: Embedding Critical Design in the Engineering Workflow. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA). https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/18553 References

Stilgoe, J., Owen, R., & Macnaghten, P. (2013). Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy, 42(9), 1568–1580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008

Stone, T. W., Marin, L., & Van Grunsven, J. B. (2020). Before responsible innovation: Teaching anticipation as a competency for engineers. Engaging Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 48th Annual SEFI Conference, 1371–1377. https://www.4tu.nl/cee/publications/408-sefi2020-stone.pdf

Van Grunsven, J., Stone, T., & Marin, L. (2024). Fostering responsible anticipation in engineering ethics education: How a multi-disciplinary enrichment of the responsible innovation framework can help. European Journal of Engineering Education, 49(2), 283–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2023.2218275