NEWS
During the 2023 Greater Bay Area Science Forum (GSF) in Guangzhou, China, Dr. Alessandro Annoni, President of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), was interviewed by the 21st Century Business Herald on the morning of May 21st, emphasizing the definition of the Digital Earth as a fusion of technological advancement and science. "The more we are advancing in technology, and more better things we can do in terms of environment," stated Annoni. The interview covered various topics, including the application of Digital Earth technology to industries and its subsequent impacts.
From his perspective, reducing pollution and saving energy for the planet is one of the most important reasons to promote the development of digital technologies.
Speaking of the prospects of the application of technological innovations in the Greater Bay Area, Dr. Alessandro Annoni expressed his hope to witness more technologies penetrate into public daily life, bringing about tangible benefits and bridging the gap between science, technology, and the general public.
Q&A:
1. What are the future application scenarios of the Digital Earth industry?
I would say the Digital Earth, by definition, is the marriage between technology development and science. The more we are advancing in technology, and more better things we can do in terms of environment, and the use of every new green technology. It is contributing to reducing pollution, and saving energy and every creature on this planet to preserve.
So it's clearly our intention, I would say, spirit to push the two work adoptions and methodologies. And from the other side, the integration of different technologies is still a challenge in some areas in which research is needed now to use these technologies for disaster management, or for fighting against climate changes. So basically, more industries will develop solutions to better deal with that, but clearly we are interested in the parts related to technologies supporting application to reducing environmental pollution.
2. What are the implications of the widespread use of Digital Earth industry applications?
Take the example of engineering and construction sector. Today, basically all the big companies are using technologies, the same technologies that are very important for Digital Earth, like the virtual reality of real business information modelling to develop the so-called Digital Twin technologies. So now a new building is designed in digital form before it is designed in a complete form. And when you are building a new building, you are deploying sensors in an intelligent way in order to be able in the future when you have a problem of maintenance. So if that's broken, you can identify immediately because you have deployed a sensor. The same way goes for the HVAC system, so an intelligent building in the future will consume less energy because it's intelligent and knows where it is applicable to deploy sensors.
3. Now in which fields can technological and innovative advancements be introduced to the Greater Bay Area?
I would like really to see if it's possible to bridge the gaps between science and technology and the public. So how this technology can be used in a different way, including the better communication about the benefit of this technology for the public. Today, there are many business-to-business or business-to-government. I'm interested more in the perspective of business-to-citizens. So how these things can really penetrate in the daily life with a positive impact, not like something using personal information to do business but without returning the benefit also to people that provided the information.
To view the Chinese report on the interview, please check out the link here:
https://www.sohu.com/a/677638368_121255906
