AI and Circular Economy Webinar
Thursday 23 March 2023Online Event
The Circular Economy (CE) is a sustainable, restorative, and regenerative alternative to the current linear
economy. The CircAI project, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, and led by the
Department of Computer Science and IVI at Maynooth University is currently evaluating Artificial
intelligence (AI) as a crucial enabler for CE. Digitalisation and AI can aid significantly with the adoption
and implementation of CE in real-world applications. In this webinar the speakers shall explore the
intersection of AI and CE and policies around implementing CE principles using AI. The speakers will
present a number of practical examples of AI and CE from Ireland and beyond. The overall theme of the
webinar will emphasise the opportunities that digitalisation and AI offer CE and that these will be core
components in the transition towards CE. This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of participants,
not limited to: SMEs, policy makers, companies or organisations looking to advance their CE ambitions,
researchers, and those interesting in learning more about this drive towards a more sustainable future.
Opportunites for Q&A and followup questions will be provided.
Moderator:
Dr Peter Mooney, Assistant Lecturer in Computer Science, Cluster lead for AI, IVI Maynooth University
Speakers:
Dr. Muhammad Salman Pathan, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher CircAI, Maynooth University: “The CircAI project: the status of AI in CE activities in Ireland”. Salman Completed his PhD in Software Engineering from Beijing University of Technology, China. Former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Research Fellow at University College Dublin and ADAPT Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Centre. Currently working as a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at Maynooth University. His research interests include Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Remote Sensing and Circular Economy. Recently he has been working on a project called Circular Artificial Intelligence (CircAI) funded by Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland. The main theme of CircAI is to investigate how how AI can be used as a potential to enable circular ambitions in real-world practices.
Dr. Unnikrishnan Madhavan, Research Project Manager, Trinity College Dublin: “The Role of the Circular Economy in the Sustainable transition of the Construction Sector”. Unnikrishnan Madhavan is a research project manager in the School of Engineering and an academic supervisor of the transnational multi-university CHARM-EU programme at Trinity College Dublin. His research interest is in building materials circular economy, resilient buildings, structures of sustainable energy and transdisciplinary climate change research with national and transnational partners. He has also co-founded a start-up, Dr Concrete, which helps construction companies design, test and certify low-carbon concrete based on contemporary research. He has a decade of teaching and research experience in structural and material engineering and is a recipient of the Postgraduate Teaching Excellence Award in Engineering from Trinity College.
Mr. Mark Kirwan, Managing Director, Positive Carbon: “The Kitchen of the Future: Using AI & Lidar
technology to track and eliminate food waste in a commercial kitchen”. Mark has spent the past 10 years of his career working on food waste products and technology. with some of the world’s largest supermarket retailers such as Tesco, Woolworths & Lidl across Ireland, UK, Australia & Chile. Along with his co-founder Aisling, they set up Positive Carbon with the aim of providing the hospitality sector with the same level of data that the supermarket sector takes for granted. Positive Carbon now works with some of the largest companies in the world helping them understand their food waste preventing on average 350 tonnes of c02 for each location they work with.
Dr. Damian Coughlan, Circular Economy Technologist, Irish Manufacturing Research: “AI and the Circular Economy”. Damian Coughlan is a Circular Economy Technologist with the Sustainable Manufacturing in IMR. Damian’s work in IMR focuses on the nexus between technology, manufacturing, sustainability and the circular economy. Damian’s background is in Electronics, ICT and Waste Electronics & Electrical Equipment (WEEE) and he has a PhD in Sustainable Lifecycle Engineering from the University of Limerick. Damian has been with IMR since 2020 and is the IMR Technical Lead for the Horizon 2020 funded CircThread project and is the Project Lead for the EPA funded AI4CE “Artificial Intelligence for the Circular Economy”.
Ms. Malahat Ghoreishi, Senior Lecturer, LAB University of Applied Sciences, Finland “Opportunities of
Artificial Intelligence for circular product design”. Malahat Ghoreishi is a senior lecturer and RDI specialist at LAB University of Sciences in Finland. As a lecturer she teaches courses such as corporate social responsibility and digital transformation and circular economy. As RDI specialist she is involved as an expert in both national and international projects in the field of sustainability and circular economy. She is also finalizing her PhD on the role of AI in Circular economy Ecosystems. Her research has been published in different international conferences, Journals and books.
