UDST as a Sustainability Platform

ITAS 2023 starts in only three months, and the interest is building. Sustainability is coming ever more into focus.

For those unaware of ITAS, it is the upcoming International Conference on Innovation and Technological Advances for Sustainable Development, hosted by UDST on 1-3 March 2023. It is a discussion forum focused on using technology to progress UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including food security, economy, clean energy and environment. UDST will unite world experts from industry, academia and policy, to showcase progress and discuss current challenges.

What do we mean by sustainability? Succinctly put by the UN itself: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This is acutely relevant, with our population booming, accelerating climate change and the rapid depletion of our natural resources.

At UDST we have been working hard to meet our own sustainability and environmental goals, to ensure we support the Qatar National Vision 2030 environmental pillar. Our research on sustainability is ongoing and the topic is taught in our classes. Our smart waste management systems include both segregation and recycling. Our LED lighting saves energy, as does our motion-activated system of lights in rarely used rooms. We have over 2,000 trees on campus and over 1,000 solar panels in operation, along with a smart greenhouse, a community garden and a compost system for bio-waste. Our shuttle buses between the metro and campus encourage students and staff to use public transport and reduce carbon emissions. And we constantly seek to do more on daily basis.

UDST is proud to host ITAS in March. It will be a powerful platform on which experts can discuss, analyze, understand challenges and share knowledge on the role of technology in sustainability, and we are honoured to be a part of it.