“The Islamic Elephant in the News Room”

In 2024, a group of students have delivered their master’s theses in the societally oriented programme “Digital Society and Global Citizenship”. This blog is one in a series devoted to the interdisciplinary studies which have been conducted in the framework of the EURIDICE project, and are all related to real world challenges, in which digital solutions are used in a design science – action research approach. The research project by Lareb Fatima Ahmad, an international … Read more

Workshop “Paradigm Shift in Computer Science” a great success.

This workshop “Paradigm Shift in Computer Science”, took place at the in Vienna, Austria, organized by the Digital Humanism Initiative, TU Wien and the IWM (the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna). It was chaired by Hannes Werthner, Stefan Woltran, Ludger Hagedorn. This workshop focuses on the challenges for computer science and the sciences in general, the move from logic and algorithmic certainty to probability and LLMs. It was a great event with presentations and … Read more

Societal impact of teaching and learning

Olomouc, 4-8 November 2024 — Lecturers and educational experts from various higher education institutions in Europe (the EURIDICE and Aurora networks) came together to discuss, debate, learn, iterate and (re-)innovate teaching, learning and educational programs during a one- week participatory workshop, hosted by Palacky University in the historical city of Olomouc. The guiding framework for this workshop is LOUIS, Aurora’s competence framework composed of sixteen high-level learning outcomes, that describe meaningful, higher level academic competences, … Read more

FEBS Conference on Inclusive Development and Sustainability, UNIMAS Sarawak, Malaysia

Kuching, 18 September 2024 – Hans Akkermans presented a key-note at the three-day academic FEBS Conference 2024, Inclusive Development for a Sustainable Future, at the invitation of our partners at UNIMAS. The Finance, Economics, and Business Sustainability Conference (FEBS) 2024 is a global gathering that unites academics, professionals, entrepreneurs, researchers, students, and various stakeholders with an interest in sustainable entrepreneurship. Taking place over three days from September 18 to 20, 2024, the conference serves as … Read more

Is software engineering gender inclusive?

Bias towards otherness is a reality in platforms or applications, and can be discriminatory and often detrimental towards minority groups, for example in gender. Is this bias introduced already by design, as part of the software engineering methodologies? And can this bias be explored, mitigated and inclusiveness increased? This is the problem tackled in the master research project by Marcel Stelte, focusing on bias in software design, towards members from the LGBT+ communities, who are … Read more

Are chatbots ready to replace humans in the workplace?

This recent master research project has tackled the question by observing and interviewing users in a large organization. Information Sciences student Sachira Tintar has tried to improve the responsivity of a chatbot, which is currently being implemented as a replacement for the usual helpdesk in the onboarding process of new staff. The first question is, evidently, if the chatbot – which is not equipped with a large language model such as ChatGPT – can understand … Read more

Predicting conflicts with data: explainable probabilistic forecasting – a master research project

Can we predict war using data and intelligent models? And how certain would we be in our predictions? A recent master research project by Oleksandr Zakotianskyi tries to answer these important questions… “A new wave of violent conflicts around the world raises concerns about the security of the whole world. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Conflict Index, 12% more conflicts occurred in 2023 compared to 2022, and the amount of … Read more

EURIDICE presented at Aurora Biannual in Naples, 28 May 2024

Naples, 28 May 2024. The Vice-rector of Education of the University of Innsbruck, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Fügenschuh, presented EURIDICE and the novel European joint master curriculum as one of the educational innovations currently being designed by an expert team of the EURIDICE Consortium, in which academics from the University Federico II of Naples (UNINA), University of Innsbruck (UIBK), Palacky University Olomouc (UPOL) participate. A special session was devoted to discuss design and implementation of Micro-credentials … Read more

“Disasters, technologies and societal resilience” EURIDICE expert lecture

Amsterdam, 12 April 2024 – Guest lecture by Kees Boersma, professor of socio-technical innovation and societal resilience. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, W&N Building De Boelelaan 1085, D107. Audience: Computer Science, Information Sciences, AI master students in the ICT4D elective module (96 master students), and project partners from Babafla and UDS. Amsterdam, 12 April 2024 – In this lecture, Kees Boersma explains how disasters are actually not natural. Hazards such as earthquakes and floods are natural events, … Read more