Hasso-Plattner-InstitutSDG am HPI
Hasso-Plattner-InstitutDSG am HPI
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11.03.2022

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openHPI: First online course on sustainable digitization

A double premiere: On March 30, 2022, the day of the first clean IT conference in Potsdam, the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) will also launch an online course on the development of resource-efficient software on its open learning platform openHPI. Entitled "Sustainable Software Engineering," the course will offer two weeks of practical assistance in English. The course instructor is IT consultant Mathias Renner.

Online course "Sustainable Software Engineering"

Online course "Sustainable Software Engineering"

Start: March 30, 2022

Duration: Two weeks

Language: English

 

Register now!

The guiding question of the free course, which is open to all interested parties and one of the first to deal with this topic, is: How can digitalization be brought about to help mitigate the climate crisis instead of exacerbating it through its energy consumption?

“Since digitization and the climate crisis are two of the most important social issues at present, we are devoting ourselves to the question of how the two developments can be linked in such a way that they interact symbiotically," says Renner. He cites the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a negative example of digital solutions that go hand in hand with high CO2 emissions. On the other hand, together with his fellow course instructors Robin Lamberti, Ferdinand Mütsch and Johannes Rudolph, he points to digitization solutions with a lot of potential for CO2 reduction.

Participants learn to develop sustainable software themselves

Those who complete the course will learn all the relevant concepts of how information technology and climate protection can go together. The promise is that participants will also be given practical tools to develop their own sustainable software. Programming examples for concrete applications that bring about CO2 reductions will have an important function. "The different perspectives of all those involved in software development will be taken into account," Renner promises.

The target group is people from the areas of software development and architecture as well as product managers who have basic knowledge of the Python programming language. This is necessary in order to successfully follow all the contents of the course. However, interested parties can easily follow many components of the course even without programming knowledge.

The weekly time commitment for the use of the instructional videos, exercises and programming tasks as well as the discussions in the course forum is three to six hours per week. Successful graduates receive a certificate from the institute.

Course launch on the day of the first Potsdam clean IT conference

On the starting day of the online course on Sustainable Software Engineering, the Hasso Plattner Institute will also host the first international clean-IT conference. It is intended as a platform for the exchange of ideas that will make the digital world more sustainable. Speakers included high-ranking representatives from politics, industry, science and civil society. They discussed with participants the pressing question of how digital technologies can support the fight against climate change and what needs to be done to reduce the carbon footprint of digitization.