Behind the Headlines | Human+Technology Beyond Covid-19

Recorded June 11, 2020. As we move exclusively online for work, education and communication, our Behind the Headlines discussion explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the immersion of technology into our lives. Covid-19 has given us a glimpse of what a technological-based future might look like. As society applies technology to recover from global events that trigger a shift in human thinking and behaviour, it is clear that the fundamental issues that we face today cannot be solved by one discipline, industry or approach alone. Amplified by social isolation, there has never been a better time to consider the implications of these virtual environments on human societies, both in the present crisis and beyond Covid-19. Our expert panel will explore a human-centred approach to technology innovation; how it can empower and disempower; and why technological design must begin and end with the human experience at the fore. This discussion marked the start of a new five year programme in Trinity, HUMAN+, cofunded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Marie Slodowska-Curie Actions. The programme will appoint international researchers from across the arts, humanities and computer sciences to work together and with enterprise partners to develop human centric approaches to technology innovation that will have long term benefits for society. HUMAN+ is led by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation at Trinity College Dublin. Panellists: Lorna Ross, is Chief Innovation Officer with VHI Health & Wellbeing. With a design career spanning 30 years, Lorna recently participated in RTE’s Big Life Fix, challenging a group of leading designers, engineers, computer programmers and technology experts to create inventions that will transform people's lives. Until recently she was Group Director at the Fjord design studio inside Accenture’s global R&D centre The Dock, where she founded and led the Human Insights Lab before her move to VHI in April 2019. Vincent Wade is Director of the ADAPT Centre for Digital Media Technology and Chair of Computer Science, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on intelligent systems, AI and Personalisation. As Director of ADAPT, Vincent heads a world leading research Centre uniquely focused across the life cycle of digital media, which pioneers technologies for media analytics, advanced machine learning, machine translation, media personalization, speech & multimodal interaction and eithics & privacy in media. Jennifer Edmond is Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Director of Strategic Projects for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in Trinity College Dublin and the co-director of the Trinity Center for Digital Humanities. She has developed a significant profile in European research and research policy circles, and has led and coordinated a number of major EU projects around knowledge complexity, digital historical research, virtual research environments, and infrastructures for digital research in the arts and humanities. Ann Devitt, is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Director of Research at the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin, and academic director for Learnovate. She is interested in technology enhanced learning and the use of computational, corpus and network science methods to examine language data. Learnovate is the the research and innovation centre focused on education tech funded by Enterprise Ireland and hosted in TCD. You can find out more about Human+ at our new website www.humanplus.ie/ For general enquires about Human+ contact [email protected] Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/