1 We position children as co-creators and change agents
We recognize that children possess valuable expertise grounded in their everyday lives, and that this expertise must actively shape decisions about their digital technologies (Nygaard, 1975). We create opportunities for children, as part of their everyday collective practices, to develop the knowledge, skills, and language needed to participate meaningfully in decisions about the digital technologies that affect them (Dindler et al., 2020; Antle and Hourcade 2022). This makes it possible for children to act as legitimate co-creators of shared digital worlds (Bjerknes et al., 1987) through active engagement in the design and governance of technologies and expression of their views within collective settings.
Simultaneously, we recognise children as active agents, inherently capable of enacting transformative change by questioning entrenched norms, identifying injustices, and imagining alternative possibilities (Stetsenko, 2020; Sannino, 2022). In this capacity, they interrogate who truly benefits from technology, whose voices are marginalised or excluded, and how existing structures might be challenged and reimagined (Dindler et al., 2020; Iversen et al., 2025; Veldhuis 2025). Through collective inquiry, creative imagination, and shared action, children demonstrate that digital technologies are not immutable, but can be reshaped and reconfigured in alignment with their own values (Dindler et al., 2020; Iversen et al., 2025).
2 We nurture curiosity and critical exploration of digital technologies
We value creating participatory spaces where children can both design and learn about digital technologies, sparking their curiosity, challenging their assumptions, and encouraging reflection on the limitations and societal implications of digital technologies. In these spaces, children are engaged as users, evaluators, critics, co-creators and contributors in our digitalized society (Druin, 2002, Ventä-Olkkonen et al. 2024). Such engagement can occur through reflective dialogue, hands-on exploration, and democratic participation in shaping the digital world. Linked with this, we regard knowledge as co-created (Freire, 1992). Learning happens in conversation, in shared experiences, and in moments of mutual discovery. This entails learning to imagine the future we want to live in. For this, we must collaborate with individuals, groups, and organizations to explore how current and emerging technologies can support children in their specific contexts and to help children recognize that they have alternatives (Bødker, 2003).
3 We foster care, empathy, and planetary responsibility
We embrace relational perspectives (Niaz et al. 2026) to nurture empathy and care, inviting children to explore how humans, technologies, and the environment can live together in mutual respect (UNICEF, 2024). We foster a sense of responsibility for shaping socially sustainable digital technologies that support the well-being of people and the wider living environment alike. Through collective reflection and exploration, children learn to view digital technologies not merely as tools but as elements within shared ecosystems – encouraging thoughtful design, ethical use, and compassionate engagement with both human worlds and beyond that (Giaccardi & Redström, 2020).
4 We support children in envisioning and nurturing inclusive futures
The past, present, and future are intertwined. Designing for the future requires critical exploration of today’s challenges and opportunities, all of which are rooted in our diverse histories and lived experiences—shaping not only our present, but also our imagination of what might be possible (Kinnula et al. 2025). We make this linkage visible to children and invite them from across the globe to imagine and uncover possibilities for alternative futures—individually and collaboratively—foregrounding their voices, values, aspirations, and diverse viewpoints, and supporting them in envisioning inclusive futures (Kenny et al., 2025; Malinverni et al., 2025; Sharma et al., 2024). We foster individual and collective dreaming of alternative and diverse futures, broadening agency, empowerment, and participation across diverse stakeholders and practitioners within the research community on computational empowerment (Schaper et al., 2023). By nurturing children’s capacity to imagine future technologies and thoughtfully examine their potential impacts and consequences, we embed democratic values in technology design and practice (Van der Velden & Mörtberg, 2013; Bannon et al., 2018; Antle and Hourcade 2022).
5 We cultivate hope, aiming for just transformations
We regard hope as a catalyst for agency and collective action—not as mere wishful thinking, but as a purposeful means of envisioning and actively pursuing radical futures with technologies that are liberated from oppression and grounded in justice and democracy (Freire, 1970). For us, hope is inseparable from critical awareness: an ongoing process of recognizing and interrogating the world's complexities and contradictions, which arise also in children's interactions with technology. Such critical awareness is not an individual achievement; it is fostered with dialogue, reflection, and collective engagement. We use methods that orient thinking towards just transformations, grounded in the hope for better futures for all. This means moving beyond fear and resignation as regards technology (Kinnula et al. 2025) towards opening spaces for imagining alternatives and taking collective, concrete steps toward technological futures rooted in social justice (Antle and Hourcade 2022).
6 We promote frameworks and infrastructures for computational empowerment
We must acknowledge our role as agents of change with responsibility to the children we work with. As researchers and practitioners, we commit to provide the physical and ideological spaces and infrastructures for computational empowerment and for sustainable and scalable change– caring about the world we create, promote, and leave behind, and creating lasting impacts from our work (Antle, 2017; Read et al, 2025). We commit to sharing findings with researchers, participating children, schools, and society, creating impact beyond research (Antle 2017; Antle and Hourcade 2022; Read et al., 2025). We must look beyond projects to the infrastructures we build, the changes we make, and the legacy we leave as Child–Computer Interaction researchers and practitioners. We strive to support implementations in schools and across the broader formal educational system. This includes teacher education to computationally empower teachers, to change the perception of roles of teachers and their students, and to further the embedding of computational empowerment in competence frameworks and educational policy (Göbl et al., 2023).
Call for action
What can you do—today—to help make this vision possible? What concrete steps can you take to move us toward it? Every small act contributes to larger change. This is work we share, and we undertake it together.
About the manifesto
Computational empowerment can be understood as a participatory design concern that explores how people and especially children develop their capacity to critically and curiously explore, question, and shape digital technologies and their impact on their lives, communities, and everyday environments. It highlights the importance of enabling children to engage critically in the creation of digital technology and to analyze its underlying structures and consequences, while also cultivating a generative and hope-oriented perspective that foregrounds possibilities rather than fears. At the heart of this vision lies the notion of collective transformative agency: the shared capacity to interpret and adapt to digital technologies, and to reimagine, reshape, and redirect them toward more inclusive, democratic, sustainable, and desirable futures.
This vision of computational empowerment reflects our collective dream of creating a better world for children and with children. This vision work originates from a workshop on computational empowerment of children in the 2025 Interaction Design and Children conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. The vision is built upon our long-term research and meaningful engagement of the young generation in our increasingly digitalized society. The series of commitments convey our stance on computational empowerment.
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References
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