Green IT Mini Conference

Green IT is gaining momentum, and already organisations are reporting a skills gap around areas such as the implementation of virtualisation and the building of a Green IT infrastructure. In response to the growing discussion facing Green IT, Old Broadcasting House hosted a Green IT mini conference on Monday 18th January. The day included guest speakers from Helen Harrop (Digital 20/20), Colin Coghill (formerly University of Leeds) and Leeds Met’s Innovation North Professor Colin Pattinson. The three main questions posed were, what does “green” really mean? Why be Green? How to be Green? Each was discussed in 15 minute presentations and a debate with the speaker panel.

Colin Coghill (formerly University of Leeds) brought interesting ideas surrounding whether IT could ever be green. Colin comments, “the agenda is to make IT less black”. The key to see this happen was to make green levels measurable universally. Further success to making Green IT an integral part of companies, is to gain a high level of commitment from the “top”. This is essential to making Green IT sustainable and communicated to students, staff and infrastructure planning.

Helen Harrop (Digital 20/20) had put together research from across the region. The results showed a lot of different clusters across the region, but a lack of wider focus. The main driver for companies going green was cost reduction. Peter Hopson (Very PC), later pointed out that for many, converting to green methods would eventually be a free upgrade.

Control, organisation and measurability of data, was high on the agenda. It was encouraging that 40% of Green IT data is already coming from Yorkshire. Digital 20/20 will be looking for feedback from attendees and readers on how to work smarter and greener together. Questions surrounded how software and company infrastructure could be certified as green. Currently, with no way of measuring the outputs, it is difficult to put a badge on confirming green computing for companies. To ensure the message of Green IT is educating employers and individuals, a regional Green IT blog is being implemented to link clusters of information and networks in order to give one main overview.

Thanks is due to Digital 20/20’s, Mel Kanarek, it was a useful and informative day for all in attendance.

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