Workshop on Sunday Oct 9th at NordiCHI 2022 in Aarhus, Denmark

Research in Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) is focused on cultivating, nurturing, and nudging children towards technology use and design. Recently, ethical aspects related to technology have come to the forefront, including the inherent limitations of technology, particularly related to Artificial intelligence (AI). Further, AI has a known diversity problem where age-inclusion can be sometimes forgotten. While various global and national policy frameworks on Children and AI are being developed, the approaches are child-centered but not child-led, restricting children from affecting their own digital futures. Further still, there is little discussion with children on the limitations, inherent biases, and lack of diversity in current design and development of AI. As AI evolves to mimic human-like cognition, emotions, conversations, and decision-making, its impact on children and their futures should be critically examined for, with, and by children. To this end, we invite NordiCHI conference participants and their children to critically examine the challenges towards AI, where all participants consider and reimagine alternative technology presents and futures. This workshop contributes to the ongoing work on Children and AI by including children as equal partners and empowering them to consider present and future challenges as experts of their own lives, with diverse interests, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Tentative worskhop structure

Call for Participation [last updated Aug 30th, call is now closed]

The Age Against the Machine workshop is focused on empowering, inclusive, and accessible AI for and with children. In this workshop, we invite participants and their children to critically examine challenges towards AI using design fiction. Child-participants are invited for one co-design session that takes one hour. Researchers without children are also invited to participate and will be teamed up together (adult-only group) for the co-design session.

Interested participants are requested to submit a short position paper (in the ACM template, between 2-4 pages, as a .docx file) where they mention:

• all author names and affiliations,
• whether they have child-participant(s) they plan to invite to the workshop’s co-design session,
• a short description of their research interests, driving values and motivations, goals, and their vision for the future of their own research,
• a short mention of how their work addresses the workshop topic,
• a short paragraph on their own vision and goals for ethical AI for and with children and how do they see that it would be possible to reach that vision? For instance, considering who are the actors whose actions are needed for the vision to come true and how it is possible to measure that the vision comes true?
• Optionally, they can also provide an overview of a study, project, or research paper that they are most proud of.

Please submit your position paper by August 26th AoE through this form. Paper acceptance are informed within one week of submission. At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and register before the early bird deadline of September 2nd though the conference website.

Workshop organizers

Sumita Sharma is a post-doc researcher at the INTERACT research unit at the University of Oulu. Her research work focuses on designing inclusive and collaborative technology for the classroom environment for children across the world, including children living in urban slums, children with special needs, and children in remote communities. She is also interested in understanding the socio-cultural barriers towards empowerment of children. Her current research on participatory AI explores designing ethical frameworks for algorithmic decision-making for and with children.

Marianne Kinnula is an Associate Professor of human-centred design and digitalization in INTERACT research unit in University of Oulu. Her research focus is on sustainable development and use of technology at different levels: individual, organizational and society level. School as an organization and children’s technology use are close to her heart: what is children’s genuine possibility to affect the decisions that concern them as well as their technology-rich environment.

Netta Iivari is a Professor in Information Systems and research unit leader of INTERACT research unit in University of Oulu. She has background in Cultural Anthropology as well as in Information Systems and Human Computer Interaction. Her long-lasting research interest concerns understanding and strengthening people's participation in shaping and making their digital futures. Her research has focused on empowerment of children in and through design and Making. Her research is strongly influenced by interpretive and critical research traditions. Currently, she is examining critical design and Making in collaboration of children.

Leena Ventä-Olkkonen is a post-doc researcher at the INTERACT research unit at the University of Oulu. Her current research interests concern on empowerment of children and people in the risk of social exclusion through design and Making. Her research has focused on participatory and critical design and making with children and understanding children’s digitalized everyday life and practices.

Heidi Hartikainen is a postdoc researcher in Human-Centred Design and Digitalization at the INTERACT research unit, University of Oulu, Finland. Her research interests concern adolescent online safety and privacy, and adolescents as technology designers and makers. She is currently involved in research focusing on empowerment through critical design, digital fabrication and making.

Eva Durall Gazulla is postdoc researcher in the GenZ project, at the INTERACT research unit at the University of Oulu. In her work, she explores the relations between learning and technology adopting an interdisciplinary approach that builds on science and technology studies, collaborative and constructive design, media studies, as well as on learning and education. She explores the use of ICT in higher and Primary Education, informal and non-formal learning, co-design processes in learning design, and design of environments that support learners’ agency and critical engagement.

Tonja Molin-Juustila is a senior lecturer and researcher at the INTERACT research unit at the University of Oulu. Her current research interests include working with diverse groups of people in participatory, inclusive and design contexts and establishing working relationships with diverse participants. Her interests in design focus on smart digital things and environments bringing joy and inspiration for diverse people. In addition, the digital transformation of everyday life in general and of social interventions and services are of particular interest to her.

Jussi Okkonen is an Associate Professor of socio-technical environments in Faculty of Information Technologies and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland. The key topic in his research work is performance and productivity in knowledge work. Due to digitalization of work environments Okkonen has put more emphasis on extended, augmented, asynchronic and spatially dispersed work and humans in digital environments. The underlying theme still is the individual and organizational performance connected to information ergonomics. Other research topics are digital learning environments, HCI and software engineering.

Sirkku Kotilainen is professor of media education at the Faculty of Information Technologies and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland. Her research focuses on children and youth as users online, their digital literacies and media education among children and youth. More recently, her research has focused on promoting media education among at- risk youth and, methodological developments in co- research with young people as empirical experts in their uses of online media.

Nitin Sawhney is Professor of Practice in the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University. As a human-centered design researcher he examines the critical role of technology, civic media, and urban interventions in crisis and contested spaces. He engages user experience design, participatory action research, sensory ethnography, and multi-modal (speech/audio) approaches for complex contexts of human-machine interaction. He has been conducting research at the intersection of AI and HCI for real-time news as well as humanitarian and crisis situations. Nitin has conducted digital storytelling initiatives with Palestinian youth in refugee camps, and established the Engage Media Lab to support participatory media, research and civic agency among marginalized youth. Nitin is an associate editor for the International Journal of Child Computer Interaction. He co-chaired the International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) in 2013 at The New School.

Grace Eden is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIITD). Her research examines transformations in people’s behaviour, communication practices, and interaction when using new technologies. Using qualitative fieldwork methods to identify requirements, improve usefulness and usability and identify implications for how new technologies transform social life.

Charu Monga is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her research interests include communication, digital media, animation, cultural construction, and designing for children. Her current research focuses on investigating virtualization techniques to promote cultural construction towards educational areas. Previously, she was a faculty member at the Department of Design in Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, where she led the ARLab, embracing digital media technologies to develop impactful communication strategies.