3rd International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystem and Regional Development - The interplay of data, technology, place and people
Date: May 23-25, 2018
Place: Aalborg University, Denmark
The 3rd International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development aims at promoting reflection and discussion concerning research and development, policies, case studies, entrepreneur experiences with a special focus on understanding the relevance of smart
learning ecosystems (schools, campus, working places, informal learning contexts, etc.) for regional development and social innovation and how the effectiveness of the relation of citizens and smart ecosystems can be boosted. This forum has a special interest in understanding how technology mediated instruments can foster citizen engagement with learning ecosystems and territories, by understanding innovative human-centric design and development models/techniques, education/training practices, informal social learning, innovative citizen-driven policies, technology mediated experiences and their impact. This set of concerns will contribute to foster the social innovation sectors and ICT and economic development and deployment strategies alongside new policies for smarter proactive citizens.
Keynotes:
Patrizia Marti, University of Siena and Eindhoven University of Technology
Crafting social innovation
Contemporary society is seeing a series of pervasive, spontaneous phenomena emerging in connection with the use of technologies which are now easily accessible, versatile and economical. The design discipline can contribute to social innovation by putting its assets of creative thought and methods for materializing and experimenting with ideas and solutions at the service of change.
The design of products, services and technological systems is in fact inextricably and inevitably linked with society and has very profound social consequences. Nowadays, the questions the designer must answer are complex, do not have a single solution, and are enriched and changed with time, making the designer’s task challenging. As educators, we can contribute to the process of social innovation by educating a new generation of designers who are capable of addressing complex societal issues, working across the disciplines of engineering, design, arts and social sciences, and engage people in co-design and participatory-research-through design. The challenge is to educate designers capable of establishing a vision of the society which innovates not only in technology, but in generating socio-cultural innovation through the use of technologies, enabling people to transform and improve their existence.
Biography
Patrizia Marti is Professor of Experience Design at the University of Siena and Visiting Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (NL). She is Director and Rector’s delegate of Santa Chiara Fab Lab (www.scfablab.unisi.it) where she manages several participatory innovation projects with external partners. Patrizia has an interdisciplinary background in philosophy and computing and a Ph.D. in Interaction Design and Aesthetics. Her research activity concerns designing systems facing cultural, aesthetic and social issues through embodied experiences. She has been an invited keynote speaker at various international conferences. She has been also the editor for special issues of international journals.
John M. Carroll, Pennsylvania State University
Community Data: Awareness, Participation, Engagement
Data, big data, and data analytics are contemporary touchstones for rational and technocratic thinking about human activity. Data also provide a new foundation and focus for community innovation, and new concrete possibilities for enhancing community activities, experiences, and civic participation. We present and discuss a series of community design scenarios envisioning how community data can be produced, gathered, analyzed, interpreted and used by community members to enhance community awareness and engagement, to provide new opportunities for learning and development among community members, and to increase the transparency, effectiveness and fairness of local government. Our argument is that community data can be seen as a vehicle not only for more pervasive participation in local communities but also for richer, better-grounded, and more effective participation.
Biography
John M. Carroll is Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. His research is in human-computer interaction and sociotechnical systems. Recent books include The Neighborhood in the Internet: Design Research Projects in Community Informatics (Routledge, 2012), and Creativity and Rationale: Enhancing Human Experience by Design (Springer, 2012). Carroll is editor of the Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics. He has received the Rigo Award and the CHI Lifetime Achievement Award from ACM, the Silver Core Award from IFIP, the Goldsmith Award from IEEE, and an honorary doctorate in engineering from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He is a fellow of AAAS, ACM, IEEE, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Psychonomics Society, the Society for Technical Communication, and the Association for Psychological Science. In 2018, he received the Faculty Scholar Medal in Social and Behavioral Science from Penn State.