Karen Bakker

Karen Bakker is an author, researcher, and entrepreneur known for her work on digital transformation, environmental governance, and sustainability. She’s a professor at University of British Columbia and visiting professor (for the 2022–2023 school year) at Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. At UBC, Bakker leads the Smart Earth Project, which mobilizes the tools of the Digital Age to address the pressing problems of the Anthropocene Era. A serial social impact tech entrepreneur, she is vice president of strategy at Riipen, which focuses on online internships for youth from underserved communities. Bakker’s most recent book is The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Stanford University’s Annenberg Fellowship in Communication, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, and a Trudeau Foundation Fellowship.