Making Sustainable IT actionable - From Data Centers to Dev Teams

📣 Welcome to the 5th edition of the Sustainable IT Netherlands Meetup, where passion for technology converges with a shared commitment to sustainability.

🌿Join us on December 3rd for an evening of inspiration, insights, and actionable strategies as we explore the intersection of IT and environmental responsibility! The theme for this evening is 'Making Sustainable IT Actionable'—we’ll dive into practical ways to improve data center models and explore how to integrate sustainability practices into our teams. The focus will be on turning sustainability from an abstract goal into concrete actions that can make a real difference in both infrastructure and day-to-day operations.

⏳ Time schedule:
18:00 - 19:00 Welcome, dinner & networking
19:00 - 20:15 Presentations
20:15 - 20:25 Pitches
20:25 - 21:00 Drinks & networking

📍 Location:
Overhoeksplein 2, Amsterdam. The room is called Playground.
This meetup is kindly hosted by Leafcloud

✏️ Cutting through the noise: demystifying cloud and AI sustainability.

Speaker: David Kohnstamm, Leafcloud Co-Founder & CSO.

Summary
We'll examine the actual footprint of a GPU used for AI over a year and show how easy it is to break down the claims from the big 3 (AWS/Azure/GCP) into simple terms they tend to hide. We'll also look at the paradox surrounding efficiency increases, discuss the fundamental flaws at the heart of the data center model, and consider ways to improve it. Finally, we'll examine the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) and how they apply to data center residual heat, cloud, and AI.

In other words: Cloud & AI sustainability sans the bullshit.

As seen in the groundbreaking documentary Clouded II: Does Cloud Co$t the Earth? https://www.clouded.tv/

📖 About the speaker
David is the co-founder, resident thermodynamics expert, and Chief Sustainability Officer at Leafcloud, where his expertise in servers and thermal dynamics plays a pivotal role in shaping the company's vision and the design of Leaf sites. His work focuses on transforming server heat into a reusable resource, leveraging his background as an engineer with a passion for building and innovation. Outside of his professional endeavors, David is an avid cycle-smith, a proud father of two, and enjoys board games.

💡 A smaller perspective on sustainability
📖 Speaker: Vincent Wijnen

Summary
In the 17 years I've worked in the field as an Automation Consultant, I have never encountered even so much as the notion that sustainability is part of the team consciousness. It joins the list of many ilities teams already contend with, and that is a problem. While for instance usability is important for your customers and maintainability ensures your teams remain successful, the story is different with sustainability. It generally does not impact the team at all, but it does matter for a larger system: the planet.
I believe one of they key factors in making sustainability successful is a change in perspective. If we fail to translate sustainability into something teams can actually relate to, it will remain limited to dedicated sustainability teams operating at the fringes of our businesses. The perspective needs to become smaller! On top of that, saving the planet sounds like the end goal of the journey, while usually that's exactly what most sustainability stories start with.
During this talk, I will use a deconstruct-reconstruct approach to rethink how sustainability can work for us. That means I will not talk about global warming, emissions, power usage and all the default topics of sustainability. Not because they aren't relevant, but I think our journey starts somewhere else completely.

📖 About the speaker
Vincent Wijnen - Automation Consultant at Sogeti
Vincent Wijnen works at Sogeti Netherlands as an Automation Consultant. And while Robot Framework and Selenium definitely feel like familiar tools, the last few years his focus has shifted from delivering value to clients towards delivering value to people. Working as a mentor, speaking coach, confidant and sometimes counselor has helped him understand many different perspectives and bend them into a more positive or productive direction.

Pitches
Our goal is connect people around Sustainable IT. So to build more connections we would like to offer the stage to everyone who wants to share something. Note that we will timebox this on 2 minutes exactly! If you want to share something, please notify us during the welcome moment!

🔎 Looking forward seeing you there!

Organizing team:
Corina Milosoiu, Chris Stapper, Dominick Viëtor and Kitty van Leeuwen