Past Events
Seminar Nordic Exceptionalism in Digitalization
CDW emerging theme 1: Global comparisons and collaborations in digital welfare event image_white on orange background

Friday, February 9, 09:30-12:00, the CDW invited all members for a seminar titled "Nordic Exceptionalism in Digitalization", where participants discussed the implications and consequences for Danish citizens and public agencies of the Danish state’s strategical positioning as a leader of public digitalization on a global stage. The seminar was part of the CDW 'Emerging theme' #1: "Global comparisons and collaborations in digital welfare" running throughout 2024.

CDW Center-wide event: Virtual Q&A session
Virtual Q&A event image, black text on white background

On February 1, 12:00-13:00, the CDW invited all members to participate in a virtual info meeting about the new center structure and management model, as well as an introduction to the upcoming events of the Spring semester. Here, CDW's Strategic Project Manager and the newly constituted management team, presented the 3 'emerging themes' of 2024, as well as the motivation behind changing the hierarchical management model of the center to a distributed management model. If you are interested in learning more, find more info in the February newsletter or contact liny@itu.dk for the event recording. 

 

CDW X ADD Christmas Event 2023
2 presenters standing in front of an audience in front of an image saying "welcome to CDW x ADD Christmas Event 2023"

This December, the Center for Digital Welfare invited researchers and practitioners for a collaborative workshop exploring 'digitalization styles' across 4 cases of Danish public digitalization. The workshop included presentations on:

1) The digitalization of the Danish police through the platform POL-INTEL by Assistant Professor at ITU, Vasilis Galis
2) Responsible Management of AI at Scale in the Danish Business Authority by post.doc at ITU, Per Rådberg Nagbøl
3) Digitalization and automation of welfare fraud control by post.doc. Benjamin Schwarz from the Danish Institute for Human Rights
4) The Danish e-ID systems NemID and MitID by Professor Torben Elgaard Jensen from Aalborg University.

The event was developed in collaboration with the Algoritmer, Data og Demokrati - ADD projektet, and marks the beginning of a new partnership and hopefully more fruitful collaborations in the future. This event concluded the year for the center and we can't wait to invite our members for more exciting events in 2024!

CDW Global Comparisons Masterclass: Global Concept of IT Governance
Global concept of IT governance, hvid skrift på rød baggrund

The first Center for Digtal Welfare Masterclass event focused on IT governance as a global concept. Public IT governance concerns the distribution of IT decisions and accountability in the public sector. While governments across the world made efforts to implement appropriate IT governance to ensure alignment between the digital and the social needs, public digital services do not always serve policy objectives or prioritize citizen’s well-being.

We invited researchers, IT professionals, and alike to participate in a workshop, where the key take-aways were 1) a broad understanding of IT governance and its relevance, 2) a tool that can be applied by public employees and researchers to understand the connection between daily IT operation with policy, IT and other business departments, and citizens’ needs, and 3), a tool that can be applied to communicate IT decisions in public organizations to the public stakeholders

CDW Distinguished Speakers Series feat. Mikkel Flyverbom
Mikkel Flyverbom standing in front of a world map
In November we had the pleasure of inviting Professor Mikkel Flyverbom as our last distinguished speaker of the year, with a talk on digital prisms: Overlit: Seeing, Knowing, and Governing in a Datafied World 

By understanding digital technologies through the lens of a digital prism, we learned how digitalization mediates and refracts social and political life and what this means for the governance and digital transformation of our welfare state.

CDW Distinguished Speakers Series feat. Rosie Collington

In September Rosie Collington, PhD Fellow, gave a talk as part of CDW's Distinguished Speaker Series dubbed: The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies.

 

In this talk Collington explored the confidence trick the consulting industry performs in contracts with hollowed-out and risk-averse governments and shareholder value-maximizing firms. The video here is from that talk. Enjoy!

Folkemødet 2023:
Setting the agenda for digital welfare and beyond

The audience at the event

CDW were, naturally, represented at Folkemødet 2023 through our own event and participation at various debates.

CDW co-hosted an interactive panel dialogue on digital in-/exclusion of youth titled "Digital Citizenship in the Shadow of the Digital Native" together with the Danish folk-highschool, Krogerup Højskole. The purpose of the event was to challenge and question the idea of young people as "digital natives" and ask what consequences public digitalization of the welfare sector has for young people as digital citizens. The panel dialogue between the panelists and the audience sparked a lot of interesting insights, from identifying problems and listening to lived experiences, to ideating ideas and visions for a future "youth friendly" digital welfare state and digitalization strategy. See all panelist and more at our LinkedIn post from the event here. 

The following day, June 16, Søren Skaarup, post.doc., and Irina Papazu, Head of Center, from CDW participated in panel debates on solutions to digital welfare and green transition within educational institutions, respectively. Here we again highlighted the increasing inequality that arises in delivering digital welfare services, how civil rights are being compromised in the pursuit of more efficient public administration procedures, and how this creates digital marginalisation of vulnerable people. For more, see our LinkedIn post here.

CDW Distinguished Speakers Series feat. Ellen Helsper
Inequalities in Digital Well being event poster

Inequalities in access to and skills in managing digital technologies have been researched and discussed in quite a bit of depth over the past two decades. These inequalities often reflect historical inequalities between countries and between people from different socio-economic and socio-cultural backgrounds. This talk will discuss two topics that are less well researched. First, unlike attention grabbing headlines a more nuanced approach will be taken to look at inequalities in who benefits and suffers socially and psychologically from digitisation. Secondly, we will look at inequalities in the participation in digital spaces and the ways that people experience these.

Ellen Helsper is Professor of Digital Inequalities in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, where she also serves as Programme

Director for the MSc Media and Communications (Research). Her current research interests include the links between social and digital inequalities; mediated interpersonal communication; participatory immersive digital spaces (VR, ER); and quantitative and qualitative methodological developments in media and communications research.

CDW Distinguished Speakers Series feat. Professor Minna Ruckenstein

Book cover The Feel of Algorithms

Algorithmic relations refer to the processes through which algorithmic culture emerges by people establishing and maintaining human-machine connections. It is not enough to ask what algorithmic systems are doing to us; we must also consider what we are doing to algorithms. This talk engages with ‘the feel of algorithms’ outlining how the analysis of algorithmic folklore and related emotional responses provides new perspectives on algorithmic relations. By examining the affective infrastructure, we can identify various modes of presence and participation in algorithmic culture, ranging from enthusiasm and ‘mild paranoia’ to irritation and frustration.

Minna Ruckenstein is a Professor of Emerging Technologies in Society at the Consumer Society Research Centre, University of Helsinki, and leads the Datafied Life Collaboratory. Her ongoing research projects focus on the patterned nature of algorithmic culture and breakages, repair, and renewal of algorithmic systems

Folkemødet 2022: Climate Jeopardy

Experience Minister of the Environment Lea Wermelin, climate investor Tommy Ahlers, top researcher Katherine Richardson and Ørsted VP Ingrid Reumert - and not least the always well-placed quizhost Lasse Rimmer. 

The Danish climate profiles quizzes on the climate agenda and sustainable digitization.

Climate Jeopardy was organized by ITU researchers Brit Ross Winthereik and James Maguire in Danchell's Debate Tent at the Folkemødet on Friday 17/6 from 11.30-12.30.

Do you want to play CDW's climate jeopardy, too? Try it yourself here!