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Personal profile

Research interests

As a sociologist, I am interested in innovation and its origen and impact in a broad sense - social innovation, product innovation, processes, and in the mechanisms that fosters or inhibits innovation. This includes the impact of digital innovations and transformation on organizations and society.

Specifically, I research digital literacy and inclusion at the Digital Transformation (User Centered Design) research group from a societal perspective: the digital divide and digital inequality is also an urgent social problem in the Netherlands with rapidly succeeding digital technologies and the explosive growth of AI applications in 2023. Digital inclusion is therefore a mission to which I, in collaboration with colleagues, students and the professional field, truly wish to contribute to.

The focus is on following research questions from a dual perspective of technology development - motivation to learn digital skills:

1- How to design and develop inclusive and accessible digital technology for specific (vulnerable) target groups? And how can you involve these target groups in co-creation processes of digital technology with developers and other stakeholders?

2- How can you motivate (vulnerable) people to develop digital skills (basic and critical ones) and to stimulate to keep learning. And what role can gamification play in this?

At a regional level, I work together with colleagues from the research group and the Digital Literacy Coalition, a network organization in which Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen has an active role and whose mission is to help (vulnerable) residents raise one level in digital literacy and skills, also in collaboration with the Digital Academy Northern Netherlands and local parties. We work with the following question in mind: Which interventions can you design and experiment with at a local level in an accessible way?

At an international level, we work together with colleagues and students in a number of Erasmus+ initiatives, including IGNITION and DIFUCH under the banner of the Stars EU Alliance (European University).

At the national level, we recently (May 2023) affiliated as Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen to the 'Alliantie Digitaal Samenleven', whose mission and agenda we endorse and we look forward to fruitful cooperation with parties from all over the country.

Education/Academic qualification

Sociology and Political Science, Doctor of Social Science, Innovation Culture and Micro Firms in Regional Innovation Systems, University La Laguna

Award Date: 15 Jan 2016

Keywords

  • HM Sociology

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