Lecture

Introduction to Technology and Humanitarian Action

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture introduces the MUK on technology, digital transformation, and humanitarian action, led by the instructor for the first four weeks. The instructor shares his background, experience, and the course structure, emphasizing the responsible use of technology in the humanitarian sector. The first four weeks focus on technical aspects of digital technologies, aiming to deepen the understanding of technology's impact on humankind. The course covers computing, networks, cloud computing, software, data, digital transformation, cryptography, cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and other technological trends. Guest speakers provide insights on computer basics and the transformation of humanitarian work through digitalization.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Technology

Technology is the application of knowledge for achieving practical goals in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life. Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society.

Data

In common usage and statistics, data (USˈdætə; UKˈdeɪtə) is a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally. A datum is an individual value in a collection of data. Data is usually organized into structures such as tables that provide additional context and meaning, and which may themselves be used as data in larger structures.

Technological evolution

The term "technological evolution" captures explanations of technological change that draw on mechanisms from evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology has one of its roots in the book “On the origin of species” by Charles Darwin. In the style of this catchphrase, technological evolution might describe the origin of new technologies. The combinatoric theory of technological change states that every technology always consists of simpler technologies and a new technology is made of already existing technologies.

Technological singularity

The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model, an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an "explosion" in intelligence and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multiple locations, each of which is a data center. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and typically uses a pay-as-you-go model, which can help in reducing capital expenses but may also lead to unexpected operating expenses for users.

Related lectures (64)

Data, big data, clouds and IoT

Explores data representation, databases, cloud computing, and challenges in the cloud environment.

Data Analysis to AI and ML, Social Media

Explores the evolution from data analysis to AI and ML, emphasizing big data, machine learning, and social media interaction.

Computer Science Fundamentals

Concludes the first week, focusing on computer science fundamentals for upcoming chapters.

Homomorphic Encryption

Introduces homomorphic encryption, enabling computation on encrypted data without decryption, covering security, applications, and practical aspects.

Computing: From 1 and 0 to Databases