The new $trillion question is: Given the resource-hungry nature of GenAI computing, can AI and Sustainability co-exist in our businesses, institutions, and communities…especially given Gen AI is still in relative nascency and about 40% of the world is not yet even online? In this forum, we’ll explore the seeming incongruence between GenAI growth and sustainability, and then unearth the kind of innovation being driven by technology, policy, and business to shift towards new outcomes.

The answers may lie somewhere in re-visiting what we mean by “Artificial”, and in examining possibilities at a photonic level of connectivity and computing. Along the way, let’s realize how AI and Sustainability can indeed co-exist – but even more, empower us to tap into a new kind of intelligent design, or “organic intelligence”. As public or private sector leaders, educators, and innovators, we are stewards of this paradigm shift and the arbiters of sustainable intelligence. Time to get to it.

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Rika is a technology leader, VC investor, best-selling author, and frequent public speaker on technology-powered industry transformation. She is Chief Commercial Innovation at NTT, a leading technology and communications services and solutions provider with more than 340,000 innovators around the world. Her current focus is on advancing commercial applications of Space & Satellite innovations and orchestrating impact initiatives across global public and private sectors for the next World Expo in Osaka 2025. For 2 consecutive years in 2022 and 2023, Rika has been awarded “Power 70” and “Power 80” recognition for the Women of Channel awards with The Channel Co’s CRN network. She has also been ranked as “Top 100 in Emerging Tech” by Women of the Future. Recently, Rika has been selected as one of the 50 most influential women in the United States according to Forbes magazine.

Trilingual in Japanese, German, and English, Rika grew up in Japan and moved to the US to attend Princeton University. Rika has since worked internationally in senior executive roles in strategy, business development, consulting, and marketing with Fortune 500 companies – NVIDIA, Accenture, Capgemini, Sony – and Silicon Valley startups. She is a digital innovation veteran and has served on multiple boards in AI, Next-Gen Computing, XR/VR/AR, and Cybersecurity ecosystems. Rika is currently a board director of Venus Shell Systems – a regenerative blue economy enterprise.

Rika is the best-selling author of “Dear Chairwoman” – featuring the trials and triumphs of women corporate board leaders. Her last book, featuring the intersection of sustainability, digital innovation, and the pandemic, called “Beyond the Black Swan: How the Pandemic and Digital Innovation Intensified the Sustainability Imperative – Everywhere”, was released by Taylor & Francis in January 2024.