New podcast episode: Biobanking Development – Amsterdam UMC’s International Freezer Challenge Win and Carbon Literacy

“I learned that health care has a share of 6 to 8% in our total energy consumption – equal to the aviation sector. Although as health care researchers, we need to face this reality and act.”

This episode of the BBMRI-ERIC podcast goes behind Amsterdam UMC’s recent win of the International Freezer Challenge to explore biobanking sustainability and carbon literacy.

Jörg Hamann, Head of the Biobank and Management Committee member for The Netherlands‘ BBMRI National Node, tells Saba Abdulghani, BBMRI’s Head of Biobanking Development, about the significance of the win – Europe’s first hospital to achieve the award.

Saba is also joined by Phil Korbel, Co Founder and Director of Advocacy at the Carbon Literacy Project, who will be working with BBMRI to develop a certified Carbon Literacy Toolkit. This initiative will form part of the Green Label that will enable Biobanks to demonstrate recognised sustainability credentials.

BBMRI-ERIC Podcast

“AI systems need to be human centric, they should serve humanity and the common good”

Episode 26 takes you to a webinar on developing strategies for a trustworthy AI explored at the example of South-eastern Asia. After a quick introduction on how the European Union approaches this challenge, Thilma Komaling, one of the authors of Indonesia’s strategy on Artificial, takes you her home country where AI-assisted tools already help to improve broad access to health care.

Thilma shares her more than 20 years of experience in policy development here in this webinar organised by the BBMRI-ERIC ELSI team. ELSI specialises in addressing ethical, legal and societal implications of biobanking and the responsible use of sensitive data and new technologies.

The transformative potential of AI will not stop at national borders and so we can all profit from exchanging our experiences to use this technology for the best of society. Together with Thilma, Ilaria Colussi, one of BBMRI-ERIC’s legal experts, explores the common ground between the EU’s and Indonesia’s approach to a trustworthy AI.

“We need something very close to the heart of the people of Indonesia, because this is something that needs to be originally from Indonesia. What we believe and what we want to carry forward as a nation.”

Indondesia explores a strategy that builds on the country’s core values to find a human-centered apporach to responsibly integrate this highly transformative technology into the daily live. One example is Halodoc, an AI-assisted app, that allows Indonesia’s citizens access to health-related advise and information even in the remotest areas of the large, archipelagic country with its hundreds of languages.

Further reading (in order of contribution):