Keynotes

When	Who	Keynote
12/7 afternoon	Prof. Albrecht Schmidt Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany	THE END OF SERENDIPITY: Will Artificial Intelligence Remove Chance and Choice in Everyday Life?
13/7 evening	Prof. Paola Bertola Politecnico di Milano, Italy	FASHION WITHIN THE BIG DATA SOCIETY: How can data enable fashion transition towards more meaningful and sustainable products?

Opening Keynote

THE END OF SERENDIPITY:
Will Artificial Intelligence Remove Chance and Choice in Everyday Life?

Prof. Albrecht Schmidt
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany

https://uni.ubicomp.net/as/

Abstract

                                    Software defines our everyday experiences! With an improved user experience, more and more people can use computer systems. Communication in families as well as in the workplace is largely software mediated. The choices we make, from the news articles we read to the movies we watch and the people we date, are to a large extent software supported. Personalized news portals, navigation systems, social media platforms, shopping portals, music streaming services, and dating apps are only some examples of systems that affect what we think and do. Improvements in human computer interaction have led to a wide universal adoption of these systems in many areas. Artificial intelligence, learning about the users and their preferences, and striving for simplification in interaction, reduces the need to make active decisions and herby removes chance and choice. Will this lead to highly optimized systems – that apparently work great for the user, but at the same time end the element of randomness and serendipity in our lives? In the talk, I will analyse the situation and these developments, looking at contributing technologies such as content creating, recommender systems and augmented reality. This opens the question if interactive human centered artificial intelligence can help to keep the user in control or if this is just an illusion.

Bio

                                    Albrecht Schmidt is a professor of computer science at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, where he holds a chair for Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media, a co-founder of ThingOS GmbH, and the scientific co-director of the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM). His teaching and research interests are in human-centered artificial intelligence, intelligent interactive systems, ubiquitous computing, multimodal user interfaces, and digital media technologies. He studied computer science at the University of Ulm (Germany) and at the Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2003 he completed his PhD on the topic of "Ubiquitous Computing - Computing in Context" at Lancaster University. Albrecht chaired the technical program of ACM SIGCHI 2014, he is on the editorial board of the ACM TOCHI journal, and he is the cofounder of the ACM conference TEI and Automotive User interfaces. In 2018, he was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy and in 2020; he was elected into Leopoldina, the Germany academy of science.

Closing Keynote

FASHION WITHIN THE BIG DATA SOCIETY:
How can data enable fashion transition towards more meaningful and sustainable products?

Prof. Paola Bertola
Politecnico di Milano, Italy

https://bit.ly/3fiU7KX

Abstract

                                    The availability of big data is creating a paradigm shift in understanding and driving public’s opinions, informing individual behaviours and expectations. Therefore, future decisions making processes within companies and institutions will be driven by envisioning capacities based on data analytics able to produce meaningful representations of social behaviours. Considering this premise, interaction through social media represents one of the major changes in the new millennium, transforming the traditional relationship between brands and their customers. From being passive receivers of messages (and products) within a unidirectional communication process, brands’ audience has been becoming an active participant within an interaction environment, where it exchanges information and knowledge and co-creates contents.  This new kind of dynamics not only affects the way customers interact with brands, but it affects the way people link with each other’s, creating “virtual communities of practice” which shares interests and values, thus becoming able to inform their behaviours.  In culture intensive industries which are highly mediatized, such as fashion, the shift of brands communication from being product-centered to becoming user-centered, embedding a system of values shared and co-created in their social media communities, has been particularly fast and successful. But at the same, within this open and highly accessible interaction arena, external societal and cultural trends can quickly twist users' attitudes towards brands. In fashion in particular, the growing awareness of the negative impacts of this system on a social and environmental standpoint, is starting to highly inform the mechanism through which trust and loyalty into brands is built. Data, related to brands audiences' sentiments, behaviours, and attitudes in social media channels, is part of the big-data society and could be used as a relevant lever in orienting fashion companies' strategies, bringing their offer closer to their customers’ values. At the same time social media can become powerful channels if used to raise users' awareness on collective issues and societal future challenges, growing consensus and orienting behaviours towards socially responsible practices. Starting from a design driven perspective, I will share scenarios on how data can be used to inform design process in fashion brands to support a transition towards a more equitable and sustainable paradigm, as well as to supporting this transition with a parallel engagement of customers communities. These scenarios will be supported by some experimental research experiences I recently led, showing the potential of these innovation trajectories.

Bio

Graduated in Architecture, PhD in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication at Politecnico di Milano, she was Scholar Researcher at the Institute of Design - Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, USA. She is currently full professor at the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches within the MSc in Design for the Fashion System, coordinating the Final Design Studio “Digital Transformation by Design”, and within the MSc in Product Service System Design, coordinating the course “Branding and Communication”. She has also been teaching in several international joint programs among which the “Data Shack Program” with John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) - Harvard University and the “Data Life Program “ with the Center for Urban Science and Progress of the New York University. She is the coordinator of the PhD Program in Design at Polimi and coordinates the joint program between Polimi and Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, established under her supervision in 2007. She is cofounder of the research collective “Fashion in Process” within the Department of Design at Polimi (http://www.fashioninprocess.com/) and has been taking part, with the role of Principal Investigator, in several research projects at national and international level, as well as in Erasmus Plus projects. Her research focuses on creative processes, design driven innovation and design branding within culture intensive industries. More recently she has been focusing on the role of design in guiding digital transformation in fashion companies, as a key driver towards more sustainable and equitable paradigms. She is Scientific Supervisor of the Editorial Committee of the book series "Fashion in Process", Mandragora, Firenze, and part of the Scientific Board of the international journal Fashion Practice, Bloomsbury (Taylor and Francis), London. She is author of several international publications among books, essays, articles, and exhibition catalogues. She was twice awarded with the ADI Compasso d’Oro Price for Research (2001, 2011).

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