Engineering the Digital Universe invites us to reimagine our world as a layered, evolving construct built not from bricks and mortar but from data, information and knowledge. This talk explores the architecture of the digital universe—its foundational levels, from physical infrastructures and network protocols to platforms, social machines, and emergent digital societies.
We examine how data flows across these layers, becoming the lifeblood of digital experience, enabling everything from logistics to language. Central to this universe are social machines—complex assemblies where people and technology co-create meaning, knowledge, and value.
While AI occupies a vital position within this ecosystem, driving new capabilities in perception, prediction, and automation, it does not define the digital universe. Instead, it is one of many forces shaping its ongoing evolution.
This talk unpacks the engineering mindset required to responsibly and purposefully construct and steward the digital universe, and argues for a vision that balances computation with compassion, scale with ethics, and automation with accountability.
The session concludes with a live demonstration of real-world systems developed by the author’s company, showcasing how these principles are being applied in practice to build meaningful, scalable digital products which solve real-life problems.
Bio:
Dr Sepideh (Sepi) Chakaveh is the CEO/Founder of Pixsellar & the inventor of PixselChat, as well as an academic at the University of Oxford, teaching Data Science, AI & Software Engineering. Sepi is Research Common Room Member of Wolfson College Oxford, member of the advisory board of the Royal Holloway College Cyber Security Doctoral Training Centre, the winner of Everywoman Innovator Award 2020, and Technology Gamechanger 2021, Winner of The Innovation Excellence Streaming Platform of the Year 2022 and the Winner of Video AI Technology Specialists of the Year 2022 and 5V DeepTech Ambassodor 2023. Sepi has a degree in Electronics Engineering & a PhD in Experimental Astrophysics & Space Sciences. She has worked both in the UK & Germany as senior scientist/academic including, Imperial College, Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Fraunhofer Society & Southampton University where she was the co-founder and the former Director of Southampton Data Science Academy, the first UK on-line Data Science academy. Sepi is the inventor of PixselChat a multiple award bearing next generation of data communication platforms with embedded translation capabilities allowing everyone to speak with others without knowing their language. PixselChat is endorsed by the innovate UK as a global successful product created by a UK start-up company Pixsellar.
