IEEE CAS Outreach workshop Lausanne Saturday 25 October 2014."Environmental impact of circuits and systems "  

Organizers: Maciej Ogorzalek, Sandro Carrara and Joos Vandewalle (contact person) Joos Vandewalle@esat.kuleuven.be

Objectives:During the last decade human life has become deeply linked and influenced by electronics-related technologies. This brings fantastic new applications for facilitating and improving our lives but unfortunately also includes extremely bad impacts on the environment, which in-turn lead to deleterious human health and social impacts. These concerns are especially prevalent during the end of their life cycle. Every year tons of computer boards, cell phones, casings, keyboards, tv sets and other electronic devices are disposed of. Many of these devices contain poisonous substances that are dumped in remote areas of Africa or Asia. Often children are employed to disassemble them, resulting in many negative humanitarian, labour, environmental issues associated with this "end of circuits and systems" lifecycle. Many organizations, companies and universities world-wide are undertaking efforts toward alleviating these issues. These efforts include, better utilization of resources, improvement of designs towards reuse of materials, and creating curricula for graduate studies directed to better educate a new generation of engineers aware of the above-mentioned problems and capable of bringing efficient new solutions.Our workshop provides an overview of current problems and solutions offered in our domain of interest - circuits and systems technologies.

Programme Room 5 EPFL Conference Center8:15-8:30 Opening of Workshop - Maciej J. Ogorzalek8:30-9:15 The Awareness and the Role of Engineering for Sustainability - Joos Vandewalle9:15-10:00 Giving a New Life to End of Life Electronic Equipment in a Sustainable and Responsible Way - Egbert Lox10:00-10:45 From Waste to Gold: Cradle to Cradle Material Recycling of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - Joost Duflou10:45-11:00 COFFEE BREAK 11:00-11:45 Green IC Manufacturing - Marc Heyns11:45-12:30 Need for Circuits and Systems for Future Electricity Power Distribution - Mario Paolone12:30-2:00 LUNCH 2:00-3:15Panel Discussion – Moderator Maciej J. Ogorzalek3:15-3:30 Closing Remarks and Action Plan - Joos Vandewallehttp://biocas2014.org/content/outreach-workshop

The workshop has been organized as a post-BIOCAS 2014 workshop at the premises of the Swisstech convention center on the EPFL Campus in Lausanne. The workshop was sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society through their Outreach Program and was free of charge and open as well to the participants of BIOCAS as to outside interested people. Also supporting the Workshop is the Fetzer Institute http://www.fetzer.org/. Although 74 people had registered for the workshop only about 20 participated.

1

All participants and speakers were excited about the quality of the presentations and the expertise of the speakers. Many of them turned in feedback and expressed clear views about using the visual material and the insights in their professional and educational activities. The pdf’s of the presentations are posted on a webpage.

Metrics of the success:-satisfaction of the participants and speakers-impact on the professional work and the educational processes-contribution to the CAS newsletter and attraction to the webpage with the pdf of the presentations- potential for a special issue of the CAS magazine (to be explored)

Budget 9000$ provided by IEEE CAS outreach Covers workshop information and registration webpage, workshop administration by Conference Catalysts, catering, room renting, hotels for speakers. The budget is handled by Conference Catalysts (Judy Scharmann)

Fetzer budget covers:Travel costs of speakers Workshop dissemination webpage and action follow upTravel and hotelcosts for participants invited by Fetzer

2

3