ABOUT
Reshaping Technology
to be Sensitive to the Socio-Technical Challenges of Personal Data/ AI/ ML
Reshaping
Technology to be
Sensitive to the
Socio-Technical
Challenges of
Personal Data/ AI/ ML
Neelima is an Assistant Professor at the Horizon Digital Economy Hub, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham.
She researches the socio-technical challenges of cutting-edge computing (AI, IoT, Robotics etc). She works on interdisciplinary projects involving sustainability, circular economy, edge computing, HDI, HCI, legal tech and digital economy.
Towards a Sustainable IoT (PI)
Funded by the ESRC Digital Good Network
Partners: University of Nottingham, Malaysia
2024
The increasing uptake of Internet of Things(IoT) which infuses intelligence into everyday mundane objects increases risk of these devices failing due to hardware, software, network or data faults. Given the relatively inexpensive nature of IoT devices, they are often replaced, contributing to eWaste. This issue fuels the global climate crisis by increasing greenhouse gas emissions through excessive production, and depletion of the world’s physical resources. Inequalities have been highlighted in relation to e-Waste from the west being shipped to the Global South where it has negative implications on the world's poorer communities (a global digital divide). This project evaluates the digital good associated with infusing repairability into IoT through speculative design that supports repairable IoT. We extend this evaluation from U.K. to the Global South, where culture around repair, is less hobbyist and more a necessity, to study the cultural differences and push for a more inclusive set of design patterns for repairable IoT.
InterNET ZERO: Towards Resource Responsible Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (Co-I)
Funded by UKRI TAS Hub
Partners: Energy Systems Catapult, Subac
2023
As the Internet expands through paradigms like the IoT and Metaverse, Autonomous Systems (AS) are being increasingly relied upon to mediate society’s unfettered dataflows. Consequently, the direct and ancillary environmental impacts of hyperscale AS are intensifying and their sustainable trustworthiness frequently undermined. Further, algorithmically governing user-energy relations.Through inclusive stakeholder engagement and cutting-edge interdisciplinary methods, this project will rethink current AS infrastructures and cement foundations for the acceptability and adoption of more resource-responsible Trustworthy Autonomous Systems.Focussing on disruptive decentralisation and potential benefits of hyperlocal AS solutions such as community clouds, Edge Computing and micro-renewables, our research will align with societal priorities to drive Internet technology’s Net Zero transition.
Fixing the Future: Right to Repair and Equal IoT (Co-I)Funded by EPSRC
Partners: Universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster, Napier, BBC, Canadian Government, Which?, Making Rooms Blackburn
2022
'Fixing the Future' is an interdisciplinary project investigating how the lack of repairability in the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) will adversely impact equity, inclusion, and sustainability in the digital economy.
P R E V I O U S P R O J E C T S
Adaptive Podcasts (PI) Funded by UKRI HorizonDER, Partners: BBC, 2022
MIDAS (PI) Funded by UKRI HorizonDER, Partners: University of Cambridge, BBC, 2021
eValuaTe (Co-I) Funded by PETRAS, Partners: BBC, 2021