Data Science Conference DSC DACH

DSC DACH 24 is the tech-first grassroots conference that gathers the brightest & sharpest minds in the industry. It is the place where you can find both professional, academy representatives and decision-makers.

Julia’s talk in the AI For Sustainability track:

„Totally Rational: The Biggest Misunderstanding in How Stakeholders Perceive Our Sustainability and Data Science Projects“

Has it ever happened to you that your stakeholders simply didn’t understand your data science project, didn’t approve the budget for it or simply didn’t use the application? Have you ever found it difficult to win over your decision-makers for your sustainability project?

All of these challenges are based on the same big misconception: that our counterparts‘ brains are capable of making idealized rational decisions based on rational arguments and data information.

The bad news first: the human brain is not biologically capable of making data-driven rational decisions in the idealized way we imagine. It is also very poor at grasping the complexity of our data science projects and of environmental systems. So does this mean that all our efforts around data and sustainability initiatives are in vain?

Now the good news: No, of course not! However, we must learn to communicate differently in order to finally bring the full potential of our projects to the street. Then we will also succeed in ensuring that our decision-makers and users finally work and decide in a truly data-based and sustainable way.