MediaFutures

Personalisation Day
2024-09-16 08:00 - 2024-09-17 17:00 (Europe/Oslo) | Wallenberg Conference Center, Gothenburg, Sweden
We invite all researchers and practitioners in the Nordics to the second Nordic Personalisation day in Wallenberg Conference Center, Gothenburg. We aim on two days full of talks and discussions on ethics, responsibility in personalisation and recommender systems. There will also be plenty of time to meet peers both from industry and research and exchange ideas during the conference during coffee breaks, lunch and after-workshop drinks.
The event starts after lunch on the 16th and ends on the 17th at lunch time. We know there are many innovative academic and industrial labs and hope this workshop can be a step toward creating a Nordic community on this highly relevant topic.
Admittance is free of charge, but registration is required. Please follow the link below to find out more.
The event is funded by Meltzer, SFI MediaFutures and Swedish funding agencies.

Training workshop in Oslo: Accessibility in Digital Learning Resources
2024-09-16 08:00 - 2024-09-17 17:00 | oslo
Join our 2-Day training workshop on Accessibility in Digital Learning Resources! Are you passionate about making digital learning more interactive and accessible? Our upcoming workshop in Oslo, Norway, on Monday, September 16th, and Tuesday, September 17th, is the perfect opportunity for you!
Focus Areas:– Tools for enhancing interactivity and accessibility in linear media experiences.– Balancing AI personalization with privacy in accessible media.
Interactive Learning:– Learn practical skills and hands-on techniques to apply WCAG/WAD in real-life scenarios.– Engage in group work facilitated by leading experts and researchers.
Who Should Attend:– COST LEAD-ME Network Members: Most participants will be from our network, but new members are welcome!– PhD Students and Researchers: Especially those from psychology, computer science, and related fields.– Accessibility Experts and Practitioners: Gain insights from experienced professionals in the field.
Why Attend?– Hands-On Experience: Move beyond theory and gain practical knowledge you can apply immediately.– Expert Guidance: Work directly with top facilitators who are leaders in accessibility and interactivity.
The attendance will be restricted to 40 students in total (in-person and online). We can support up to 15 students traveling to Oslo, Norway (MSc, PhD students, and young researchers eligible for COST funding); this is funded by the LEAD-ME COST Action CA19142. The School also acceptsapplications from candidates with their own financial sources. All participants must fill out an application form, which includes a short CV and motivation letter. The Scientific Committee will classify students according to COST rules, including balancing career stage, gender, and countriesof work.
Application Deadline: August 20

CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS

All costs will be reimbursed after the event according to COST Reimbursement Rules.
Reimbursement:
Students will have to sign the attendance for each day of the School, according to the COST regulations. Eligible trainees will be reimbursed by the LEAD-ME CA19142 COST Project. To be reimbursed, students should submit travel tickets reimbursement claims and carry out theirobligations which will be specified by the COST rules.
This seminar is organised and sponsored by SFI MediaFutures, LEAD-ME, Schibsted, NORCE and TV2 School.
Venues:Day 1, 16th Sept, will take place at Egmont in Nydalsveien 12A (stop: Nydalen):Day 2, 17th Sept, will take place at Schibsted in Akersgata 55 (stop: Stortinget or Oslo S):Early-bird gathering, 15th Sept: For those who arrive on Sunday evening, we suggest meeting up ata place offering both food and/or drinks. This place will be announced later.

Training workshop day-by-day:
Day 1 will focus on navigation and perception, including an introduction session, followed by user demonstrations. Four users will demonstrate how they navigate and perceive digital learning resources, representing different age groups. There will be smaller groups of five to seven PhDstudents at each demonstration “station”, based on using participants from Digjobb.no. After lunch,following WCAG principles, the focus will be on how to navigate and perceive a digital learning resource. Participants will work in a break-out group (10-14). There will be focus on eye-gazenavigation, one-button, two-button, braille, deaf. Complementary PhD-specializations will work together in each break-out group. Participants will learn how to interpret WCAG/WAD in relation to eye-gaze navigation, one-button, two-button, braille, deaf. There will be one facilitator per break-out group.
Day 2 will focus on understanding. It will start with making WCAG principle understandable, in relation to content and to accessibility challenges such as dyslexia, symbol users, cognitive challenges. Thereafter, four users will demonstrate how they use learning resources, representingdifferent age groups. Again, there will be five to seven PhD students on each demonstration “station” Using the Digjobb.no as partner. After lunch, there will be navigation break-out group 1 (10-14) How to interpret WCAG/WAD in relation to dyslexia, symbol users, cognitive challenges. DifferentPhD-specializations in every group. There will be none navigation break-out group 2 (10-14 persons). How to interpret WCAG/WAD in relation to dyslexia, symbol users, cognitive challenges. There will be different PhD-specializations in every group.

Day 1, 16. SepDay 2, 17. Sep

Day 1, 16. Sep 09.00–09.30 Introduction 09.30–10.15 Experts 10.30–11.30 User-café 11.30–12.30 Lunch 12.30–13.30 Navigat: how to 13.45–15.00 Navigat: how to cont. 15.00–16.00 Pitching with experts 16.00–17.00 Roof-top drinks if sunny 19.00–22.00 Social eve (venue tbd)

09.00–09.30 Introduction09.30–10.15 Experts10.30–11.30 User-café11.30–12.30 Lunch12.30–13.30 Navigat: break-out13.45–15.00 Navigat: break-out cont.15.00–16.00 Pitching with jury16.00–17.00 Wrap-up and mingling

More info on the experts, accomodation and program can be found in the pdf ADLM_Brochure_final_web

UiB Innovation Festival: From research to change
2024-09-20 09:00 - 14:30 | Nygårdsgaten 5, Nordre Allmenning 3 at Læringsarenaen
You are invited to the UiB Innovation Festival that will take place on September 20th from 9 to 14:30 at Nygårdsgaten 5. The festival is your opportunity to engage with the broad spectrum of innovation emerging from our university, discuss how to balance the open science with protecting intellectual property, and reflect on how UiB can contribute to Vestland’s green transition. The event is a part of the InnovasjonsukenOPP and will be a meeting place for people from academia, businesses and public sector in the region.
One of the program’s highlights is the session on responsible research and innovation by Dr. Anne Blanchard, Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, Faculty of Humanities:
“Was Oppenheimer a responsible scientist or not? Was he responsible for the impacts of his research on nuclear fission? In this session, I will focus on responsible research and innovation (RRI). What does it mean, to do research in a responsible way (without going as far as playing with weapons of mass destruction)? What do we need to pay attention to, in our everyday research practices? Everyone welcome!”

Registration to UiB Innovation Festival 2024 for employees and students
Registration to UiB Innovation Festival 2024 for participants outside UiB

We look forward to welcoming you to a day filled with inspiration, learning, and networking.
Programme:
09:00 – 09:30 Festival opening and keynote speech
“Building social impact at scale: experiments in arts, humanities and social science commercialisation at the University of Cambridge”
Dr Emma Salgård Cunha, Senior Associate Commercialisation Director, Cambridge Enterprise, University of Cambridge
09:30 – 10:15 Innovation relay: 8 pitches on different types of innovation at UiB
10:15 – 10:45 Coffee break and stands
10:45 – 11:15 Parallel sessions, first round:
Session 1 – How to balance publishing and protecting intellectual property (IPR)?
Session 2 – Student Innovation: resources and tools for success
Session 3 – Effective use of AI: crash course in prompt writing
11:15 – 12:15 Lunch and exhibitions
12:15 – 12:45 Parallel sessions, second round:
Session 1 – Do you work at UiB and have an innovative idea? Learn how to proceed and what resources are available to you
Session 2 – Mini-design sprint – innovation tool for quickly creating and testing new solutions
Session 3 – Responsible innovation – what is it and how to do it?
12:45 – 13:15 Coffee break and stands
13:15 – 13:55 Panel discussion: Innovation for green transition and UiB’s role in the region
13:55 – 14:30 Award Ceremony for UiB Idé 2024 with project presentations
Among the stands, in addition to inspiring innovation projects, you can have one-on-one consultations to:

Explore what patents filed in the world have cited your publications
Quickly scan your research project for innovation potential
See how to improve your visibility online

Most of the day will be in English, whilst the panel discussion and the UiB Ide Award will be in Norwegian.

MediaFutures seminar
2024-09-20 11:00 - 12:00 | Online
Title: Facing disinformation in social media with focus on its social impact
The integration of social media into our daily lives has been both transformative and essential, offering numerous advantages in how we communicate, share information, and engage with the world. However, alongside these benefits comes a growing concern: the widespread dissemination of misinformation. This challenge not only distorts public perception but can also significantly influence critical societal events, such as elections and public health crises. In this talk, we will present research from the UGRITAIlab at the University of Granada, specifically in the field of fake news detection and analysis. Our research spans several key areas, with a particular emphasis on the social impact of misinformation. Central to this work is our DESINFOSCAN Framework, which includes a social impact module and a credibility analysis module.
The social impact module focuses on analyzing the influence of misinformation by utilizing advanced topic detection and argumentation techniques to examine social media discussions. Meanwhile, the credibility module uses word embeddings to identify credible individuals and those whose contributions are valuable to the discourse on specific topics across social networks. By addressing these issues, we aim to offer insights into how misinformation can be mitigated and how trustworthiness in social media interactions can be enhanced.
The seminar is digital only. The zoom link can be found below.
SPEAKER: José A. Díaz-García
J. Ángel Díaz-García, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science and AI at the University of Granada (UGR). He graduated as a Computer Engineer in 2016, receiving an award for outstanding academic performance. Subsequently, he ventured into the professional field as an SQL analyst at Asexor, gaining professional experience in the private sector. In 2017, he completed the qualifying master’s degree in Computer Engineering. During this period, José Ángel began to specialize in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), leading him to pursue the master’s degree in Data Science at UGR, thereby consolidating his knowledge in AI. During this time, he made his first scientific contributions at international conferences as part of a research initiation scholarship for master’s students. After completing this second master’s degree, he participated as a data scientist in international projects at the Universities of Oviedo and Granada. In 2019, he was awarded an FPU scholarship from the Ministry, marking the beginning of his doctoral studies in the area of Natural Language Processing (NLP), which culminated in the defense of his thesis on October 27, 2023, with honors in international doctorate and CUM LAUDE. Throughout his research career, he has contributed to 4 publications (JCRD Q1, Q2) in the field of NLP and participated in 15 international and 4 national conferences. He has also collaborated on 6 projects, including NOFACEPS, of which he is the principal investigator, and two international projects, such as COPKIT, where he contributed with a significant unsupervised sentiment analysis method. José Ángel has completed research stays at the University of Lisbon with Professor Joao Paulo Carvalho and at Imperial College London, where he worked at the Data Science Institute with J. Amador Diaz-Lopez. As a result of the collaboration with Imperial College, a contribution was made to an international conference in the field of misinformation in networks. Additionally, the organization of a special session at a conference was initiated, and currently, this relationship continues with two publications under review.
Finally, it is worth highlighting the management and leadership skills demonstrated by José Ángel, which led to the acquisition of a research project at UGR, where he is the principal investigator, and which concluded with the publication of the NOFACE credibility analysis system in the journal Expert Systems With Applications (JCR Q1). He was also part of the organizing committee of the FQAS 2023 international conference and the program committee of the COMS2 international conference in India. He has organized special sessions at 3 international conferences, outreach workshops, and given interviews on radio and in the press.

Future Week 2024
2024-09-25 08:00 - 2024-09-27 17:00 | Media City Bergen, Atrium
Future Week is an annual conference on media technology and editorial innovation. The conference focuses on the intersection of new technology and journalism.
With around 300 participants, Future Week is an informal, boutique conference where editorial teams meet product developers and media technologists. We feature engaging speakers from newsrooms and media technology companies, both from Norway and from our international network.
Key topics for 2024:Generative AINewsroom innovationProduct developmentDisinformationVisual storytellingProduct management
Speakers:

Siv Juvik Tveitnes (Schibsted)
Andy Parsons (Adobe)
Ryan Broderick (Garbage Day)
Raquel Vazquez Llorente (Witness)
Pete Mathias (Alumni Ventures)
Bo Bergstedt (TV 2 Denmark)
Kjersti Løken Stavrum (Tinius Trust)
Markus Aarstad (Flighty)
Jan Stian Vold (Schibsted)
Håkon Espeland (Muybridge)
Pål Nedregotten (NRK)
Christian Birkeland (TV 2)
Adde Granberg (SVT)
Daniel Vestergaard (DR)
Tessa Sproule (CBC)
Markus Rask Jensen (Amedia)
David Thompson (DPP)

More speakers to be announced!

Day 1: September 25, 2024
09:00 – WelcomeHost Chris Black, Global Head of Brand & Communications at Vizrt

09:05 – The Future of Schibsted MediaSiv Juvik Tveitnes, CEO of Schibsted MediaSiv Juvik Tveitnes is the CEO of the brand new Schibsted Media, arguably one of the most influential news media companies in Europe. Where does she aim to take Schibsted Media in the coming years, and how will the new Schibsted Media grow? Tveitnes will share her vision of how Schibsted Media will develop, her thoughts on the profitability of news media, and what the future holds for the news media ecosystem. Join us for the future of Schibsted Media!

09:40 – Capturing Magic by Turning Cameras into SoftwareHåkon Espeland, CEO at MuybridgeJoin us for this session where Håkon Espeland gives us an insight into how Muybridge is turning cameras into software. We will explore how their technology can revolutionize media production, storytelling, and viewer engagement. Don’t miss this deep dive into how turning cameras into software will influence broadcast, sports, and digital communication in the next era of imaging.

10:00 – What an Editor Learned from Moving to the Product Department and Back AgainJan Stian Vold, Managing Editor and Product DeveloperJan Stian Vold is the managing editor who became a product developer, before going back to the newsroom as an editor again. What did he learn from working in these two different worlds? What are the best aspects of how editorial teams work, versus how product teams work? What are the key differences, and what can the two learn from each other? Last but not least: What do both cultures need to change to improve?

10:20 – Coffee Break

10:50 – Future Beat: The Next Innovation FrontierPete Mathias, Venture Capitalist
Generative AI is not merely a continuation of existing technology, it is a wholly new technological paradigm. What does that mean, and where will generative AI take us? Pete Mathias has substantial venture capital and startup experience, and will share what venture capitalists look for when they assess this technology and attempt to think about the future for media tech globally.

11:25 – How to Make a Product that People LoveMarkus Aarstad, Founder of FlightyHow do you make a product that both users and Apple love? Markus Aarstad made Flighty, an app that lets you track your flight seamlessly, suggesting options if there are delays. The app has been showcased at Apple’s own product launch, won Apple’s Design Awards and was a finalist for app of the year. It is also a smash hit among users of course. Markus Aarstad will get into the nuts and bolts of developing a successful product and share his best advice on how to make a product that people love.

11:45 – Lunch Break

12:45 – C2PA Content Credentials: the Global Movement Toward Transparency and TrustAndy Parsons, Sr. Director, Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe
As media producers and consumers, we are living in unprecedented times. Incredible generative tools are fueling an ecosystem of distrust and confusion. Since 2021, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) has been working to develop a technology standard for verifiable, trustworthy content provenance, called Content Credentials. Now, to bring the standard into widespread use, it will be the work of content creators, news organizations, publishers, tool makers, and hardware manufacturers to come together and deploy Content Credentials. This talk will trace the journey to date and the path forward, focusing on practical considerations and painting a picture of a future in which authentic content stands out.

13:20 – Navigating the Future: Top Five Media Industry TrendsDavid Thomson, DPP
In its Demand vs Supply reports, the DPP engages with media and entertainment businesses to identify key industry needs and analyses how well these demands are being met by vendors. David Thomson will be fresh from producing the fourth report in the series at IBC 2024 and will discuss what he sees as the five biggest media industry trends.

13:45 – Coffee Break

14:15 – How sensor data enables both breaking news and investigative reportingWith Ketil Moland Olsen and friends

14:45 – CTO Panel: What Are the CTOs Looking For?Daniel Vestergaard (DR), Pål Nedregotten (NRK), Adde Granberg (SVT), Christian Birkeland (TV 2), hosted by Hilde Sandvik
Join us for the first-ever summit of Chief Technology Officers from Nordic broadcasters at Future Week. They will share their needs, frustrations, and predictions when it comes to media technology. In this session, you will hear the CTOs from NRK, TV 2, SVT, and DR discuss the big topics of our time. Is it better to build in-house than to buy off the shelf? Will AI really make everything easier? What is the biggest challenge short-term, and what demands are they anticipating in the near future? And which broadcast technology are they most excited about, right now?

15:30 – End of Day 1

Day 2: September 26, 2024
09:00 – WelcomeHost Chris Black, Global Head of Brand & Communications at Vizrt

09:05 – TBA

09:40 – Driving Innovation the Amedia WayMarkus Rask Jensen, Director of News at Amedia
How do you innovate and serve 109 different newsrooms, some with as few as two employees? In this session, you will learn about Amedia’s unique way of product development, both when it comes to developing for end-users and for tools to be used in the newsroom. Markus Rask Jensen will tell us about Amedia’s data strategy, how they use hyperlocal data and how they make a range of new AI tools available for a very diverse set of newsrooms.

10:00 – Anne Jacobsen Memorial Award Presentation

10:10 – Coffee Break

10:40 – Interview with AJM Award WinnerKjersti Løken Stavrum and award winner

11:05 – The AI Frontier: Dreams and Dangers AheadBo Bergstedt, Enterprise Architect (AI) at TV2 DenmarkIt’s been two hectic years since OpenAI began releasing generative AI products to the public, sparking an AI arms race. The consequences vary depending on who you ask: Some fear the impact of increasingly powerful models, while others see it as an opportunity for humanity to reset and restart. Join Bo Bergstedt as he explores the progress made since the concept of «machines that think» entered the mainstream, and examines how we are steadily advancing toward both the dreams and fears surrounding this transformative technology. What will the rapid development of AI mean for the media industry, and what should you do to prepare for what is guaranteed to be a most interesting future?

11:40 – Lunch Break

12:40 – The Web Has Turned to Crap. Now What?Ryan Broderick, Author of Garbage DayThe web is broken and has been for quite some time. What used to be a fun playground, a common conversation and a place of inspiration is increasingly turning into… well… crap? How did we get here? And what now? To answer these questions, welcome Ryan Broderick, a guy who self-identifies as «extremely online». He has been exploring the quirks, turns and major shifts of the web over the last few years through his award-winning newsletter Garbage Day. What’s going to happen next? And should there not be a better internet than what we are stuck with now?

13:10 – How C2PA Will Reshape Our NewsroomsTessa Sproule, Director of Metadata and Information Management at CBC/Radio-CanadaC2PA is more than content credentials and can fundamentally change how newsrooms work. Tessa Sproule shares how CBC/Radio-Canada uses the implementation of C2PA as a springboard for rethinking and restructuring their entire newsroom and journalistic processes. The challenge is formidable: how does one prepare a whole newsroom for a boom in transparency, both in terms of workflow and best practices? You will learn how C2PA can be an important enabler for better journalistic processes.

13:40 – How we built the world of Alan WalkerKristian Berg, Creative Director at Apparat
Kristian will talk about the creation of World of Walker and how they built a worldwide fan community through various untraditional formats.

14:00 – Coffee Break

14:30 – The Disinformation Election: Truth and lies in the presidential campaignPanel: Hilmar Mjelde (HVL), Maria Amelie (Factiverse), TBA, Hosted by Vivi Stenberg

15:00 – TBA

Andy Parsons
Senior Director, Content Authenticity Initiative @ AdobeAndy Parsons is the Senior Director of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative, leading the development of software and standards for digital provenance. With a background in software engineering, product design, and business strategy, Andy empowers creative professionals through innovative technology. He is known for his hands-on leadership and expertise in emerging technologies.
Raquel Vazquez Llorente
Head of Law & Policy, Technology Threats & Opportunities @ WITNESSRaquel is a lawyer at WITNESS, focusing on audiovisual media in conflict and human rights crises. She leads a team studying AI and deepfakes’ impact on media trust and tackles regulatory challenges. Previously, she helped build eyeWitness, a tool for authenticating audiovisual evidence. Admitted to the Madrid Bar, she holds degrees from LSE and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Bo Bergstedt
Enterprise Architect (AI) @ TV2 DenmarkBo Bergstedt, the Enterprise Architect (AI) at TV 2 Denmark, has a career focused on media product development. Formerly a Technology Strategist, he identifies technological trends and their impact on TV 2. Since 2018, Bo has led projects using Generative AI to create videos, images, and voices, and develops internal guidelines for its use. His expertise also covers blockchain, gamification, streaming, and the Metaverse, driving innovation at TV 2.
Siv Juvik Tveitnes
Konsernsjef @ Schibsted Media.Siv Juvik Tveitnes is the EVP of News Media and former COO of Schibsted Media. She chairs the boards of Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet. Her previous roles include CEO of Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad, and positions at Media Norge, Bergens Tidende AS, and Bekk Consulting AS. She holds a master’s in Business Administration from the University of Bath and a bachelor’s in Social Sciences from the University of Bergen
Håkon Espeland
Co-Founder & CEO @ MuybridgeHåkon Espeland is the Co-founder and CEO at Muybridge, a deep-tech company re-inventing the camera by turning them into software, on a mission to reimagine the future of storytelling. Håkon holds an M.Sc. in Cybernetics from NTNU, specialized in real-time embedded systems, and has, together with several of the Muybridge team members, created leading mission-critical systems within broadcasting
Markus Årstad
Founding Designer @ FlightyMarkus Aarstad is the designer of Flighty, a renowned flight tracking app for iOS. He is the only Norwegian to have won the prestigious Apple Design Award, and the Flighty app has also been a finalist for App of the Year. He is deeply engaged in the intersection of technology and human behavior.
Kjersti Løken Stavrum
CEO @ Tinius Trust.Kjersti Løken Stavrum is the jury leader for the Anne Jacobsen Memorial Prize. She has a background as a journalist and editor. Løken Stavrum is the CEO of Tinius Trust – the controlling owner of Schibsted ASA, has been the chairman of Norwegian PEN, and led the Freedom of Expression Commission in Norway. She has previously been the secretary general of the Norwegian Press Association, has an education in political science, and has a master’s degree in management.
Ryan Broderick
Author of the Webby-Award winning newsletter @ Garbage DayRyan Broderick is the author of the award-winning tech newsletter Garbage Day. Ryan has spent far too much time online, and is desperate for ways to turn that obsession into something useful.
Jan Stian Vold
Development Editor @ BT.Jan Stian Vold (47) is the Development Editor at Bergens Tidende. He has worked at BT his entire career, in various roles. For the past three years, he has focused on editorial product development.
Pete Mathias
Venture Capitalist @ Alumni VenturesPete Mathias is a Partner at Alumni Ventures, a leading venture fund. He has extensive international investing experience across the U.S., EU, and China, and was previously a Senior Director at Bertelsmann’s $1.5B+ venture arm. Pete began his venture career at 406 Ventures and was a founder in the Harvard Innovation Lab. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford (Distinction), Dartmouth College (MBA and A.B. magna cum laude), and Harvard University (MPA).

Pixar Animations Studios from film to streaming: What are the lessons?
2024-10-31 14:00 - 15:00 | Media Lab, 9th floor, tower 3, Media City Bergen
The Media Cluster in Bergen welcomes you to the lecture “Studios from film to streaming: What are the lessons?” by Pixar’s Bill Wise on October 31st at 14:00.
Join Bill Wise, a veteran of Pixar Animation Studios, as he shares his wealth of experience from almost three decades of storytelling, visual effects, and technical leadership. Having contributed to iconic films like Toy Story, The Incredibles, and WALL-E, and recently leading projects for Pixar/Disney+, Bill provides a behind-the-scenes look at Pixar’s evolution from blockbuster films to streaming platforms.
In this insightful session, Bill will explore the challenges and innovations Pixar faced as it transitioned into the world of streaming. He’ll discuss the impact of this shift on production pipelines, storytelling techniques, and the creative process, offering lessons learned from his time as a Supervising Technical Director and Visual Effects Supervisor. Bill’s journey includes working on Oscar-winning films like For the Birds and Brave, and he will offer key takeaways from his recent projects for Disney+, including his work on visualizing and producing content for this new era.
Whether you’re a fan of Pixar or interested in the future of animation and streaming, this session promises a fascinating look at how one of the world’s most beloved studios adapted to the changing media landscape

Annual Meeting 2024
2024-11-14 09:45 - 2024-11-15 15:15 | Scandic Ørnen, Bergen
MediaFutures is a centre for research-based innovation with the goal to develop responsible media technology, leveraging AI technology, for the media sector.
The centre is a consortium of the most important media players in Norway. The University of Bergen is the host of the centre. User partners include NRK and TV 2, the two main TV broadcasters in Norway, Schibsted, including Bergens Tidende (BT), and Amedia, the two largest news media houses in Scandinavia/Norway, as well as the world-renowned Norwegian media tech companies Vizrt and Faktisk.no. The centre collaborates with renowned national research institutions including the University of Oslo, the University of Stavanger and NORCE, and works together with high-profile international research institutions.
This years Media Futures Annual Meeting will be held at November 14-15 at Scandic Ørnen, Bergen in Norway. The 2024 Annual Meeting constitutes a forum for the exchange of scientific results and industry insights within the field of responsible media technology.
This year’s focus topic are Trust and Usability of Generative AI .
Following last year’s success, the 2024 Annual Meeting is expected once again to attract, and bring together Norwegian and international researchers, and industry practitioners with the intent of engaging in discussions on different topics.
Join us for inspirational keynote talks, prototype demonstrations, presentations held by our researchers, and industry partners, and poster session.

REGISTRATION CLOSED

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Vanessa Murdock
Sr Manager Applied Science - Amazon Web Services

Keynote Speech
Title: Responsible AI in the Generative Era
Abstract: Responsible AI (RAI) seeks basic guarantees of fairness, safety, privacy, robustness, controllability, explainability, transparency, and governance for traditional ML systems and generative AI systems. With recent legislation, including the EU AI Act, RAI has become a central focus of the AI/ML product development cycle. This talk provides an overview of the current practices for measuring and mitigating RAI dimensions in generative systems, and recent research in AWS AI/ML.

Bio
Vanessa Murdock leads a research group in AWS AI/ML, whose focus is Responsible AI (fairness, safety, privacy, robustness, and veracity). In addition to doing fundamental research in RAI topics, her team builds tools for assessing aspects of responsible AI, used in AWS Services such as Bedrock, Rekognition and Transcribe. Prior to joining AWS, she led a science team in Alexa Shopping focused on recommender systems, search and HCI. Her team provided the machine learning that backed Amazon’s Choice, and Alexa Shopping List, in addition to contributing content moderation for the generative AI system Rufus. She was previously at Microsoft, working on location inference and notifications at Bing and Cortana. Prior to Microsoft, Murdock led the Geographic Context and Experience Group at Yahoo! Research in Barcelona, which centered on geographic information retrieval and user-generated content. She has been awarded 20 patents, resulting in a Master Inventor Award from Yahoo! (2012). She received the OAA Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Young Alum from the University of Massachusetts in 2014. She is currently serving as the Chair of the ACM SIGIR Executive Committee. Murdock received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval, advised by Bruce Croft.

Alejandro (Alex) Jaimes
Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of AI - Dataminr

Keynote Speech
Title: Responsible AI in Critical Real-Time Applications
Abstract: Dataminr’s AI Platform discovers the earliest signals of events, risks, and threats from billions of multi-modal inputs from over one million public data sources. It uses Predictive AI for detecting events, Generative AI for describing them, and ReGenerative AI for generating live briefs that continuously update as events unfold. The events discovered by the platform help first responders quickly respond to emergencies, they help corporate security teams respond to risks (including Cyber risks), and they help news organizations discover breaking events so they can provide fast and accurate coverage. Building and deploying a large-scale AI platform like Dataminr’s is fraught with research and technical challenges. This includes tackling the hardest problem in AI (determining the real-time value of information), which requires combining a multitude of AI approaches. In this talk, I will briefly describe the main use cases of the work which I do, but I will focus specifically on Responsible AI: in the domains we work, the alerts we send out save lives, which implies the need for many levels of decision-making that can be impacted by AI. I will describe a framework on the deployment of responsible AI that is based on the types of decisions in which AI is involved, and the types of factors that need to be considered in deploying AI in critical applications.

Bio
Alex Jaimes is the Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of AI at Dataminr. His work centers on blending qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand user behavior and drive product innovation.
With over 15 years of global experience, Alex has contributed to research with real-world impact at companies such as Yahoo, KAIST, Telefónica, IDIAP-EPFL, Fuji Xerox, IBM, Siemens, and AT&T Bell Labs. Previously, he served as Head of R&D at DigitalOcean, CTO at AiCure, and Director of Research and Video Products at Yahoo, where he led teams of scientists and engineers across New York City, Sunnyvale, Bangalore, and Barcelona.
He has also been a visiting professor at KAIST. A prolific author, Alex has published extensively in top conferences like KDD, WWW, RecSys, CVPR, and ACM Multimedia, and is a regular speaker at international academic and industry events. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

PROGRAM

Day 1

OPENING SESSION

09:45
Registration & Coffee & Event Information

10:15
Poster & Demo Exhibition Vol. 1

12:00
Lunch

KEYNOTES SESSION

13:00
Welcome Address: Siri Gloppen (UiB), Christian Birkeland (TV2), Christoph Trattner (MediaFutures)

13:15
First Keynote Speech: Vanessa Murdock (Amazon Web Services): "Responsible AI in the Generative Era"

13:45
Moderated QA with Alain D. Starke (University of Amsterdam)

14:00
Coffee Break

14:15
Second Keynote Speech: Alex Jaimes (Dataminr): "Responsible AI in Critical Real-Time Applications"

14:45
Moderated QA with Mehdi Elahi (MediaFutures)

15:00
Coffee break & Group Picture

TACKLING MIS- & DISINFORMATION SESSION

15:15
Presentation: Project Reynir Results: Christoph Trattner & Helge O. Svela

15:45
Panel: Kayleen Devlin, (BBC Verify), Helge O. Svela (Media Cluster Norway), Vinay J. Setty (Factiverse, UiS), Sergej Stoppel (Wolftech), Morten Langfeldt Dahlback (Faktisk.no), Moderation: Bjørnar Tessem (MediaFutures)

FINAL SESSION

16:30
Interactive Poster & Demo Pitches Vol. 2

18:00
Poster & Demo Award

19:30
Conference Dinner (Scandic Ørnen)

Day 2

OPENING SESSION

09:45
Registration & Coffee & Event Information

INSIGHTS & INNOVATION SESSION

10:15
Book Teaser: John Magnus R. Dahl (MediaFutures): "Making a World with the Smartphone", Moderation: Peder Haugfos

10:45
Coffee Break

11:00
Presentation by Sanja Šćepanović (Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge): "Responsible AI: Innovating from Design to Deployment", Moderation: Morten Fjeld (MediaFutures)

12:00
Lunch

AI & NEWS SESSION

13:00
Presentation by Kayleen Devlin (BBC Verify): "BBC Verify: tackling falsehoods in an age of uncertainty", Moderation: Christopher Senf (MediaFutures)

13:45
Coffee Break

14:00
Presentation by Lubos Steskal & Chris Ronald Hermansen (TV2): "Real Journalist, Virtual Avatar: What We Learned from Peeking into Pandora's Box with KI-Kjetil", Moderation: Samia Touileb (MediaFutures)

14:30
Presentation by Damian Trilling (University of Amsterdam): "Responsible Recommender Systems for News" Moderator: Erik Knudsen (MediaFutures)

15:15
End.

The program is tentative and subject to change.

SPEAKERS

Kayleen Devlin
Senior Journalist at BBC Verify

Bio
Kayleen Devlin is a senior journalist at BBC Verify. She has extensive experience of working on open-source investigations and covering disinformation from the Ukraine and Israel Gaza wars. As well as this, she has also covered topics ranging from climate denial around COP26 and election related disinformation in the Philippines and the US midterm and presidential elections.

BBC Verify: tackling falsehoods in an age of uncertainty
In a year filled with global conflicts and elections, communicating credible information in a timely manner has never felt more important. BBC Verify senior journalist, Kayleen Devlin, joins us to discuss some of the approaches her team takes when it comes to tackling misleading posts online. What are some of the main themes that have cropped up this year? And how much has generative AI disrupted the landscape?

Sanja Šćepanović
Senior Research Scientist, Nokia Bell Labs

Bio
Sanja is an applied mathematician with MSc in cybersecurity and cryptography and a PhD in data science. Almuna of Internation Space University and ex of ICEYE, she has a keen interest in space technology and research (e.g., AI for Earth Observation).
Her professional experiences include government institutions, two startups, CERN, and Bell Labs. During her doctoral studies with EIT Digital, she has also taken business, innovation and entrepreneurship courses, working on startup ideas in some of them.
Her example research projects include public and population health studies using social networks, human dynamics using mobile phone data, and urban vitality using satellite data.

Responsible AI: Innovating from Design to Deployment
Abstract: This talk presents the work of the Responsible AI (RAI) team at Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge. It covers the six RAI pillars and solutions for designing, deploying, and monitoring responsible AI systems. Discover AI Design, a collaborative approach for holistic AI system design, and ExploreGen, which helps foresee and manage potential uses and risks of AI technology. See how NLPGuard prevents over-reliance on protected attributes when monitoring a toxicity classifier. Finally, gain insights into how AI incidents are portrayed in the news media.

Damian Trilling
Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Bio
Damian Trilling is a full professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and holds the Chair for Journalism Studies.
Damian Trilling, with a background in social sciences and a role in a humanities department, integrates multiple perspectives, especially in computational methods. His research focuses on how citizens engage with news and current affairs amid today’s media landscape, examining the roles of journalists, news media, social platforms, and technology.
Initially using surveys, Trilling now leverages digital trace data, such as browser history donations, to study news consumption and sharing across formats, including high- and low-quality news and misinformation. He has also contributed insights on shareworthy news and large-scale sharing on platforms like Facebook.
Trilling investigates feedback loops in media—how popular content reinforces itself, the effects of personalization, and audience metrics on news production. He also critiques the “filter bubble” concept, preferring a nuanced view on personalized news flows.
A proponent of computational communication, Trilling co-founded *Computational Communication Research*, and co-authored a book on computational analysis. His interests include machine learning, event identification across media, and experimental tools for recommender systems and data donation.

Responsible recommender systems for news
News organizations increasingly use recommender systems on their websites, and also for streaming platforms that offer content regarding news and current affairs, recommender systems are essential. From a user perspective, such systems can help surfacing relevant content; and from a commercial perspective, they can lead to higher click-through rates and revenues. At the same time, there are growing concerns that too much emphasis on clicks may be detrimental to delivering a responsible journalistic product. In this talk, I show recent developments that allow to leverage recommendation techniques to achieve desirable outcomes such as broadening users’ horizon without sacrificing user satisfaction.

Siri Gloppen
Dean of SV-faculty at UiB

Bio
Siri Gloppen is a Professor of Political Science and Vice Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences. She directs LawTransform, the CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, and heads the Bergen School of Global Studies. Her work focuses on the intersections of law, politics, and social change, and she is actively involved in global development and policy research initiatives.

Christian Birkeland
Chief Digital Officer at TV2

Bio
Birkeland holds a Master of Science in Engineering from NTNU in Trondheim and has a background as CEO of RiksTV.
Christian Birkeland is part of the executive management team at TV 2 and the chairman of the steering board in SFI MediaFutures.

Christoph Trattner
Director, SFI MediaFutures

Bio
Christoph Trattner is currently appointed as Lead Professor (1404) by the University Board of the University of Bergen (UiB). At UiB, he serves as the Founder and Center Director of the Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation, known as SFI MediaFutures, which has secured funding and in-kind contributions totaling approximately 300 million NOK.
Additionally, he is the Founder and Leader of the DARS research group, Norway’s largest research group specializing in Recommender Systems. He holds a PhD (with distinction), MSc (with distinction), and BSc in Computer Science and Telematics from Graz University of Technology in Austria and is an ACM Senior Member.

Helge O. Svela
CEO at Media Cluster Norway

Bio
Svela is an award winning investigative journalist and editor. As a journalist in Bergens Tidende, Svela won a Skup-diploma for the fact checking initiative faktasjekk.no. Svela held various leadership positions over 11 years in Bergens Tidende, og was in charge of the newspaper’s coverage of the 2011 terrorist attack. Svela has also led various innovation initiatives in Bergen Tidende, among them New digital formats, which won a silver medal in the 2022 INMA Awards for innovation in newsroom. He started as the CEO of Media Cluster Norway in September 2022. Media Cluster Norway is a media and media tech cluster with around 90 member companies. Svela chairs the ITPC working group on Provenance Best Practices and Implementation.

Chris Ronald Hermansen
Project Manager for editorial AI at TV 2

Bio
Chris Ronald Hermansen is the project manager for editorial AI at TV 2. Over the past 15 years, he has worked as a journalist, news editor, and project manager in various media companies. In recent years, he served as the editorial manager for TV 2’s news department in Bergen. Hermansen holds a law degree.
Lubos Steskal is a data scientist and AI developer at TV 2’s editorial AI team, and he is also the industry lead of the Media Futures language technology work package. Combining academic and industry experience, he has worked extensively with natural language processing and machine learning across various sectors. His background includes positions at the University of Bergen, Sbanken, and several startups, bringing a unique perspective to the intersection of AI, journalism and media.

Real Journalist, Virtual Avatar: What We Learned from Peeking into Pandora's Box with KI-Kjetil
‘KI-Kjetil’, the first AI avatar of a news personality in Norwegian media, serves as an interactive chatbot focusing on U.S. presidential election coverage. Based on journalist and news anchor Kjetil H. Dale, this talk presents the journey of developing and deploying KI-Kjetil, from evaluating editorial questions and challenges through technical implementation and towards operational monitoring. We explore the editorial rationale behind creating an AI clone of a news anchor, discuss our project objectives, and evaluate their outcomes. The presentation opens a discussion about the broader implications of AI avatars in journalism, examining their impact on public trust and the ethical dimensions of deploying AI-powered representations of real journalists.

John Magnus R. Dahl
Postdoctoral Researcher in SFI MediaFutures

Bio
John Magnus R. Dahl is Postdoc in WP1 Understanding Media Experiences at MediaFutures. He holds a MA in Rhetoric, Argumentation and Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD from the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen. Dahl is interested in the relationship between culture, communication, and politics in a broad sense, as well is the development of ethnographic methods within media studies and rhetoric. He is currently working on a project of how Norwegian public broadcasters relate to, or do not manage to relate to, the media experiences and social and cultural needs of young people.

Making a world with the smartphone
In this talk, postdoc John Magnus R. Dahl presents insights from his forthcoming book, the first book from MediaFutures – In The Palm of Their Hands: Teenage Boys and their Smartphones as Worldmaking Devices (expected spring 2025).
Based on an ethnographic fieldwork where Dahl observed six teen boys online and offline over 18 months, this books seeks to answer how the smartphone impacts the life of young people. The central argument is that the smartphone gives teenagers agency – agency to find out who they want to be, to connect with the people and communities that matter to them and to the wider world. This is why the smartphone is conceptualised as a worldmaking device.
In addition, Dahl has found that the smartphone use is fundamentally gendered – used to enact masculinities, different ways of being a man – and that it is used differently by those who are “different” – ethnic minorities and queer people. For them, worldmaking through the smartphone is even more important.

Sergej Stoppel
Chief Innovation Officer at Wolftech

Bio
Sergej is the Chief Innovation Officer at Wolftech, where he leads a culture of innovation across interdisciplinary teams, transforming industry standards for a platform serving over 20,000 global professionals. With a PhD in Computer Science and recipient of the Eurovis Best Dissertation Award, Sergej combines research-driven strategic planning with a passion for customer-centric solutions. He is a recognized AI expert and thought leader, regularly speaking at key industry events and driving sustainable growth through strategic partnerships and groundbreaking AI solutions for media professionals.

Morten Langfeldt Dahlback
Head of Innovation and Technology at Faktisk.no

Bio
Morten Langfeldt Dahlback leads the technology and development efforts at Faktisk.no. He also heads the EU project NORDIS, a Nordic collaboration aimed at countering misinformation and disinformation. Dahlback holds a PhD in philosophy and has previously worked as a commentator for Adresseavisen and as an analyst for The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Vinay Setty
Associate Professor at Universitet i Stavanger

Bio
Vinay Setty is the founder and CTO of Factiverse and an associate professor at University of Stavanger. Setty’s research area broadly encompasses NLP, information retrieval and deep neural networks for language technologies. He specializes in fact-checking, question answering, and conversational search. He has published in several top-tier conferences within the area of information retrieval and web mining such as SIGIR, The Web Conf, WSDM, CIKM etc.
Furthermore, he also won the 2020 SR Bank Innovation prize in Norway for commercializing neural network technology for fake news detection. Setty’s startup Factiverse has also won digital trust challenge and NORA AI startup award and has secured a US Patent on deep neural networks for false claim detection. Setty has a PhD in Computer Science from University of Oslo and a postdoc from Max-Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany.

EXHIBITION AND DEMO PITCHES

Demos

Name
Title

Khadiga Seddik
Beyond Political Personalization: Enhancing News Recommendation with Headline Style Customization Using ChatGPT

Bilal Mahmood
Large Language Models as Editors Picking Related News Articles

Snorre Alvsvåg
Sequential Recommender systems in action in the Video Domain: A TV 2 Demonstration

Fazle Rabbi & Svenja Forstner
Ai Conflict Analysis Tool

Pete Andrews
AI Co-Moderator: Enhancing Broadcasted Political Debates

Huiling You & Svenja Forstner
Event Extractor Model

Poster

Name
Title

Jeng Jia-Hua
Negativity Sells? Using an LLM to Affectively Reframe News Articles in a Recommender System

Sindre Berg Sæter
Metadata Analysis of Images and Videos

Adane N. Tarekegn
CSAI: New Cluster Validation Index based on Stability Analysis

Beatrix Chik Wu
News Report Adaptation for Synthetic Voice Presentation

Sohail Khan
CLIPing the deception: Adapting Vision-Language Models for Universal Deepfake Detection

Jørgen Eknes-Riple
Emotional Reframing Recommended News Articles

Bjørn Kjartansson Mørch
Analysis of Popularity Bias Effect in Media Recommendation

Tord Berget Monclair
Personalised News Recommendation in the Sports Domain

Snorre Åldstedt
Investigating and Measuring Bias in Generative Language Models

Peter Røysland Aarnes
NumPert: When Numbers Shift, does Prediction Hold?

Martin Salterød Sjåvik
Subtler biases in LLMs

Marianne Borchgrevink-Brækhus
News experience: understanding the resonance between content, practices & situatedness in everyday life

Tobias Jovall Wessel
Empowering Real-Time Media Research With NewsCatcher API

Bilal Mahmood
Can Large Language Models Support Editors Pick Related News Articles?

Ayoub El Majjodi
Advancing Visual Food Attractiveness Predictions for Healthy Food Recommender Systems

Thorstein Lium Fougner
Enhancing Enterprise streaming platforms with contextual post-filtering

Gloria Anne Babile Kasangu
Picture this: How Image Filters affect trust in online news

Ingunn Statle Nævdal
Personalised news summarisation

LOCATION

Both days of the Annual Meeting will take place at the Conference Centre at Scandic Ørnen.
Scandic Ørnen is located in Lars Hilles Gate 18, right next to the main bus terminal.The closest public transport stop is “Bergen Busstasjon”, the main bus terminal.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/oHBxMur84ReqdFVx7

NIKT 2024
2024-11-25 09:00 - 2024-11-27 16:00 | Nygårdsgaten 5, Nordre Allmenning 3 at Læringsarenaen
University of Bergen will arrange Norwegian Conference for ICT Research and Education (NIKT) from 25.-27. November 2024 in Bergen. NIKT is an important national meeting place for researchers, teachers, masters and PhD students in information and communication technology, computer science, information science and information systems. A conference for ICT-researchers in Norway bringing together people from the following fields:

NIK – Norwegian Informatics Conference

NOKOBIT – Norwegian Conference for Organizations’ Use of IT

NISK – Norwegian Information Security Conference

UDIT – Norwegian Conference for Education and Didactics in IT subjects

The conference is hosted by Department of Information Science and Media Studies at Faculty of Social Science, University of Bergen and funded by SFI MediaFutures and SLATE.
The academic content of the conference will consist of a number of peer reviewed articles that present new research, supplemented by the contributions of four invited speakers on current topics in ICT research, innovation and education. In addition, held in conjunction with the conference, there will be a meeting of the national ICT fagråd as well as a number of thematic workshops and lightning-talk poster presentations.
One of the three keynote speakers will be Björn Þór Jónsson, Associate Professor, CRESS, at the Department of Computer Science in Reykjavik University.
Björn Þór is working within the broad field of Multimedia Analytics, applying Multi-Dimensional Analysis concepts and techniques to multimedia. A strong focus is on interactive learning at scale, resulting in the Exquisitor prototype, which can interact with a collection of 100M images in real-time on a standard laptop. Over the last decade, his research has focused primarily on the performance of very large scale content based multimedia retrieval. This research has led to the traditional international publications and graduate degrees, but also to two patent applications and a start-up company, Videntifier Technologies. He has taught classes on the database design and implementation, the architecture and performance of database systems, the architecture and performance of SSDs, big data management, and on advanced database systems, such as multimedia systems, stream query processing and database client caching.
The second keynote speaker is Per Thorsheim.
With close to 30 years of experience in information security, he is a passionate and knowledgeable leader in this area. His core competencies include operational security management, policy development and implementation, hardening and security patch management, defence in depth, risk analysis, awareness training, and incident handling. He also has a strong interest and expertise in passwords and password research, having founded and organized the first and only conference dedicated to passwords and digital authentication: #PasswordsCon. Per is a frequent speaker, writer & media commentator on security-related topics, and is currently holding the CISA and CRISC credentials from ISACA.

There will be 2 more keynote speakers in the conference.

Important deadlines:
1 September: Abstract submission
8 September: Full paper submission
11 October: Notification of acceptance
25 October: Camera ready paper
1 November: Registration

UiB AI #12: Aligning AI with Human Values. Challenges and Solutions
2024-11-29 10:00 - 15:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, first floor, Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen, 5015, Norway
The event aims to bring together experts, researchers, and industry professionals to explore, discuss, and advance our understanding of the challenges and solutions related to aligning artificial intelligence systems with human values and goals.
The objectives and expected outcomes of this seminar are as follows:
– Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the challenges associated with AI alignment, including biases, interpretability, and value misalignment.
– The workshop will facilitate interactive discussions to develop concrete solutions and strategies for addressing AI alignment challenges.
– Participants will have the opportunity to network with leading experts and build connections that can lead to ongoing collaborations and partnerships
This event is a collaboration between Universitetsfondet and UiB AI.
Programme:
09:00-09:30: Registration and coffee
09:30-09:40: Introduction by moderator Samia Touileb, Department of Information Science and Media Studies at University of Bergen
09:40-10:15: How can we prevent LLMs from behaving badly? Jan Broersen, Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
10:15-10:50: Value aware AI. Nardine Osman, Tenured Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) (presentation by Zoom)
10:50-11:05: Coffee break
11:05-11:40: AI alignment of LLMs: a simple case study on detecting deceptive designs. Davide Liga, Post. Doc. at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine, Université de Luxembourg
11:40-12:15: Human Interactions and their Implications for Ethical and Responsible Robotics and AI. Dr. Emily C. Collins, Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester.
12:15-12:45: Lunch (included)
12:45-13:20: Towards a Critical Political Economy of Generative AI. Vinit Ravishankar, Independent researcher with a PhD in multilingual language technology
13:20-13:55: Enabling Responsible AI with Humans. Nadin Kokciyan, Director of the Human-Centered AI Lab (CHAI Lab) at the University of Edinburgh
13:55-1410: Coffee break
14:10-14:45: News in AI age: alignment with editorial values and ethics. Anastasiia Klimashevskaia, PhD candidate, MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation
14:45-15:20: Machine ethics and alignment. Marija Slavkovik, Professor at Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen
15:20-15:40: Wrap up and discussions

Workshop: From Research to Academic Startup
2024-12-05 10:00 - 12:45 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
Curious about how to bring your research to life outside academia? This workshop provides a chance to explore just that. Through inspiring talks of start-up founders, hands-on activities, and networking, you’ll get a taste of what it takes to turn research into a startup venture.
Highlights include:
– An introduction to VIS’ brand-new entrepreneurship program for researchers, TILT, tailored to provide researchers and graduate students with entrepreneurial skills, expert advisory services and access to capital and networks. Recruitment of pilot participants in progress!
– Inspirational stories from innovators who’ve made the transition to startup founders
– Case work to start building an entrepreneurial mindset
Program Outline

10:00 – 10:15: Coffee and mingling
10:15 – 11:00: Introducing VIS & TILT & ADA incubator
11:00 – 11:50: Small Group Activity – Designing a Start-Up Plan
12:00 – 12:45: Inspirational Talks:

Luqman Wadood, Founder and CEO of UngDebatt (Bergen)
Jonathan Geffen, Co-Founder and CTO of the gaming start-up Cross Hatch (Berlin)
Håvard Tveit, Co-founder and CEO Everviz (Bergen)
Gaute Kokkvoll, Head of Product at Factiverse (Bergen)

Sign up and mark your calendar for December 5th and join us to see how your research might create impact beyond the university!
Register here: Registration for “From Research to Academic Startup” Workshop 05.12 10:00-12:45
NB! Registration deadline 02.12.2024
Audience: Open to all, with a special focus on PhD students, post-docs, and researchers at UiB Infomedia & SFI MediaFutures interested in exploring the path from academia to entrepreneurship.
Language: English

The Human Quotient for Better AI Systems
2024-12-10 11:00 - 12:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
Ujwal Gadiraju is a tenured Assistant professor in the Software Technology Department of the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He co-directs the TU Delft “Design@Scale” AI Lab and is a member of the program management team of the TU Delft AI Labs.
He is the Vice-Chair of CHI Netherlands, representing the human-computer interaction community of academics and industry practitioners in the Netherlands, and has served as an ACM Distinguished Speaker. Ujwal leads a research line on Human-Centered AI and Crowd Computing, actively collaborating with experts in healthcare, finance, and education and working with a variety of industry partners and NGOs to tackle important societal problems.
Before joining the WIS group, Ujwal worked at the L3S Research Center as a Postdoctoral researcher between 2017-2020. He received a PhD degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in Computer Science with a summa cum laude recognition from the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, in 2017, an MSc. Computer Science degree from TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2012, and a B.Tech. Computer Science and Engineering degree from VIT University, India in 2010.
His research interests lie at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Information Retrieval (IR). Ujwal has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles in these fields. His work has been recognized with several honors, including 10 paper awards at top-tier HCI and AI conferences. His current research focuses on creating novel methods, interfaces, systems, and tools to overcome existing challenges on the path toward building more effective and inclusive AI systems and facilitating appropriate reliance of humans on such systems. For more information, see https://ujwalgadiraju.com.
Talk abstract:
The unprecedented rise in the adoption of artificial intelligence techniques and automation in many contexts is concomitant with the shortcomings of such technology concerning robustness, interpretability, usability, trustworthiness, and explainability. Crowd computing offers a viable means to leverage human intelligence at scale for data creation, enrichment, and interpretation, demonstrating a great potential to improve the performance of AI systems and improve the appropriate adoption of AI systems in general. How can we build AI systems that can augment human capabilities across different tasks and improve human experiences in various contexts? What can we do to facilitate appropriate trust and reliance of people on AI systems? By drawing from a series of recent empirical studies, this talk will highlight the intriguing and pertinent role of human input in propelling better AI technology in the quickly evolving age of generative models.

Bias in Hate Speech Detection: Challenges and Solutions
2024-12-12 11:15 - 12:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
SFI MediaFutures invites to a seminar on bias in hate speech detection hold by Debora Nozza, on 12 of December in our office in Bergen.
Abstract:
Online hate speech is on the rise, often leading to offline harm. While NLP methods, including LLMs, offer tools for detection, fine-tuning these models can introduce severe unintended bias—performing inconsistently across comments involving specific identity terms (e.g., gay, Muslim, woman). This talk explores the risks of deploying off-the-shelf classifiers, methods for measuring and mitigating bias, and the ongoing challenge of balancing effective hate speech detection with fairness in online spaces.
Bio:
Debora Nozza is an Assistant Professor in Computing Sciences at Bocconi University. Her research interests mainly focus on Natural Language Processing, specifically on the detection and counter-acting of hate speech and algorithmic bias on Social Media data in multilingual context. She was recently awarded a €1.5m ERC Starting Grant project 2023 for research on personalized and subjective approaches to Natural Language Processing.
The event is free of charge.
If you want to join online, please open the following link: https://uib.zoom.us/j/64083511296?pwd=[REDACTED]

Rethinking Trust: Unveiling the Dynamics of Trust and Distrust
2024-12-16 16:00 - 17:00 | U.Phil Auditorium
Title: Rethinking Trust: Unveiling the Dynamics of Trust and Distrust
Research on trust is highly interdisciplinary and has produced an impressive body of knowledge about its forms, causes and consequences. However, existing research agendas have notable biases, two of which are the focus of this presentation: first, research privileges trust while marginalising distrust, resulting in an incomplete and flawed understanding; second, it engages in sweeping generalisations, overlooking distinctions between trust in people, institutions and machines. This presentation proposes ways to conceptualise trust and distrust as complementary phenomena and explores the specific dynamics that govern trust relationships with humans, institutions and machines.
Bio:
Christian Lahusen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Siegen, Germany. In his work Lahusen has paid special attention to the relation between state authorities and citizens, focusing on both the attitudinal and the behavioural levels. He has been studying political and civic engagement, in later years with a strong focus on solidarity and trust. His work documents the importance of citizens’ empowerment, but also the situational and contextual conditions that hamper it. His recurrent involvement in large-scale interdisciplinary research projects has led to a number of co-authored publications. He has published extensively in the fields of political sociology, contentious politics and societal integration and has led several national and international research projects in these areas. Lahusen was the coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project Enlightened trust: An examination of trust and distrust in governance – conditions, effects and remedies.

Northern Lights Deep Learning Conference
2025-01-07 08:00 - 17:00 | Tromsø
Deep learning is an emerging subfield in machine learning that has in recent years achieved state-of-the-art performance in image classification, object detection, segmentation, time series prediction and speech recognition to name a few. This conference will gather researchers both on a national and international level to exchange ideas, encourage collaborations and present cutting-edge research.
Keynote topic: A technical talk on recommender systems, focusing on how this technology is often used to enhance misinformation and create echo chambers, and what can be done to combat this.

Lerchendalkonferansen 2025
2025-02-04 08:00 - 2025-02-05 17:00 | Scandic Nidelven, TRONDHEIM
The Lerchendal conference serves as an important meeting place for approximately 200 leaders and talents from politics, business, and academia. It is a platform where Norway’s key decision-makers and innovators come together to discuss, share, and shape the future.
The conference is the perfect arena for those who want to shape the future, broaden their perspective, and gain new knowledge.
MediaFutures centre leader Christoph Trattner will hold a presentation on Day 1 of the conference. He will focus on our research on misinformation, addressing its broader meaning on democracy, the economy, and other societal areas.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Desinformasjon og falske nyheter – hvordan det kan true sikkerhet og demokrati

Innlegget holdes på engelsk

Christoph Trattner, Professor, Director MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology and Innovation, Universitetet i Bergen
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
This Year’s Theme: Geopolitics and the Technological Race
How does the global power struggle impact technology, business, and value creation?
The conference is a collaboration between the Research Council of Norway, Tekna, NTNU, and SINTEF.

AI & Media: The Transformative Impact of AI in the Media Industry
2025-02-27 17:00 - 20:00 | Google, Bryggegata 6, Oslo, 0254
Our Innovation Coordinator, Christopher Senf, and PhD candidate, Peter Andrews, have been invited to speak at Oslo AI’s next event at Google’s office on Misinformation and Disinformation in the Age of AI. They will introduce the Center and present a live demo of the AI Moderator.
Topic: AI & Media: The Transformative Impact of AI in the Media Industry
Speakers:
Christian Schüssler Oslo Kreativ AI
Igor Pipkin, PhD DN Media Group
Christopher Senf, PhD (SFI MediaFutures,UiB) and Peter Andrews, PhD candidate (SFI MediaFutures, UiB)
Christian Schüssler, Founder of Reimagine AS and organizer of Oslo Kreativ AI (kreativai.no)

“The Future of Visual Storytelling”
Join film director and founder of Reimagine and Oslo Kreativ AI, Christian Schüssler, on an inspiring journey into the next era of media, creativity and storytelling. We explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the creative process, empowering artists, and unlocking a new realms of visual expression and narrative possibilities.

Igor Pipkin, PhD, Head of Data & Insights at DN Media Group (dngroup.com)
(more to come)
Join us for an insightful event featuring three expert talks on the revolutionary impact of AI in the media industry, from streamlining content creation to transforming audience engagement. Discover how cutting-edge AI technologies are reshaping the future of media and entertainment.
~~~~~~~~~~
Agenda (preliminary):
17:00-17:30 – Arrive at Google office for food, soft drinks and networking
17:30-17:40 – Welcome and introduction by the Oslo.AI team
17:40-19:40 – Presentations with Q&A
19:40-20:00 – Wrap-up and short mingling
~~~~~~~~~~
This event is organized by Oslo.AI, the largest community for AI enthusiasts and professionals in Norway with 3500 members. Oslo AI was founded with the goal of spreading knowledge on how artificial intelligence can be applied to contribute to creating a better society. Oslo AI strives to create an active and engaged AI community, the main focus being quarterly AI events with a specific theme. Their mission is to be the meeting place for people interested in how applied AI shapes business, technology, and society.
This in-person event is made possible by the Oslo AI team and their sponsors: Google, Inmeta & Microsoft.
Register for a free ticket here: https://lnkd.in/d_kZQieK

Opphavsrett for journalister – Hva du må vite om bruk og deling av innhold?
2025-03-06 12:00 - 17:00 | Media City Bergen, Medielaben i 9. etasje, tårn 3
Hva kan du bruke fritt, og hva krever tillatelse? Hva gjelder for lenking, embedding og bruk av innhold fra sosiale medier? Hvordan påvirker kunstig intelligens opphavsretten?
Bli med på en hands-on workshop med advokat Jon Wessel-Aas, en av Norges fremste eksperter på medierett. Her får du konkrete svar på de viktigste spørsmålene om opphavsrett – skreddersydd for journalister.

AI anno 2030: In the Public Interest?
2025-03-07 09:30 - 15:00 | Universitetsaulaen, Muséplassen 3
UiB AI is collaborating with NORA on a CuttingEdgeAI seminar in the University Aula in Bergen. The idea behind the seminar is to bring together some of the foremost AI researchers in Norway to discuss where we stand in terms of research, which areas Norway has the opportunity to make its mark on and what might happen on the AI front in the future. Where will the research front be in different branches of artificial intelligence in five years’ time? And does AI represent the public interest, for example when it comes to democracy, labour, welfare, the environment and culture? The seminar is mostly in Norwegian.

The seminar will be streamed, and the recording will be available through a link.
Program:
09:00 Arrival and light refreshments09:30 Welcome by Pro-Rector Pinar Heggernes, Pro-Rector at UiB and Chair of the UiB AI Steering Group
Part 1: Where is the research front in various branches of artificial intelligence headed?
09:40 AI research in Norway in 2025: Anne Kjersti Fahlvik, Director of Innovation in Business and the Public Sector, Research Council of Norway
10:00 Arnoldo Frigessi, Professor and Director of the Center of Excellence (SFF) Integreat, UiO10:15 Jill Walker Rettberg, Professor and Deputy Director of the Center of Excellence for Digital Narratives, UiB
10:30 Coffee break
11:00 Robert Jenssen, Professor and Director of the Center for Research-based Innovation (SFI) Visual Intelligence, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway11:15 Panel discussion with Anne Kjersti, Arnoldo, Jill, and Robert, moderated by Pinar Heggernes, Pro-Rector, UiB
11:45 Lunch
Part 2: Where does Norway have particular strengths in AI research?
12:30 AI at NAV – What are we doing, and what are we wondering about?Jon Vegard Sparre, AI Lead at NAV
12:45 Heri Ramampiaro, Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science, NTNU13:00 Marija Slavkovik, Professor and Head of the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB
13:15 Coffee break
13:45 AI and regulation: From Norwegian marketing to research qualityMalcolm Langford, Professor at the Department of Public and International Law, UiO
14:00 Panel discussion with Jon Vegard, Heri, Marija, and Malcolm, moderated by Klas Pettersen, CEO of NORA
14:30 Food and networking15:00 Farewell
Moderator for the day: Dag Stenvoll, Coordinator for UiB AI

Announcement of the 2025 Holberg Prize and Nils Klim Prize
2025-03-13 09:00 - 10:00 | University Aula, UiB
On Thursday, 13 March, the 2025 Holberg Prize and Nils Klim Prize will be announced at the University Aula in Bergen.
At the event, the Rector of the University of Bergen, Margareth Hagen, will present welcoming remarks. The Chair of the Holberg Prize Board, Professor Jørgen Sejersted, will announce the recipients of the Holberg Prize and the Nils Klim Prize. We will also hear the citations from the Academic Committees, before the Holberg Prize Academic Director, Professor Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, will lead a conversation between experts on the Laureates and their scholarly work.
There will be a musical performance, and a light breakfast will be served.
We ask that those who wish to attend the event in person to register.
The livestream requires no registration.
Doors open 8:40
About the Prizes
The Holberg Prize is awarded annually to a scholar who has made outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology. The recipient must have had a decisive influence on international research. The Prize is worth NOK 6,000,000.
The Nils Klim Prize is awarded annually in the above fields, to a young researcher. The candidate must be a citizen of a Nordic country or be formally affiliated with a Nordic research institution. Also, the candidate must be under 35 years of age at the nomination deadline. The Prize is worth NOK 500,000.

The Language of Coordination: From Humans to AI Agents
2025-03-21 12:00 - 13:30 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We are thrilled to welcome Luca Maria Aiello, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, to the MediaFutures seminar series.
As global challenges like climate change, pandemics, and mass migration become increasingly urgent, the need for mass coordination has never been greater. In his presentation, “The Language of Coordination: From Humans to AI Agents,” Professor Aiello will delve into the fascinating intersection of social science, language, and technology, exploring how natural language can drive large-scale coordination in the public sphere. Drawing on his cutting-edge research, he will demonstrate how insights from psychology and linguistics can be harnessed to understand and predict collective behavior, and how these insights can be applied to artificial intelligence to create persuasive social agents capable of influencing public discourse on social media platforms.
Abstract:
A defining task for humankind is to achieve mass coordination to tackle global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and mass migrations. Social science research has identified psycho-linguistic aspects of social interactions that can trigger spontaneous coordination when used strategically in the public debate. We created Natural Language Processing tools that can capture these social dimensions from conversations, and found that they can explain and predict outcome of consensus and coordination. Furthermore, we show that these dimensions can be used to prompt AI agents powered by Large Language Models to make them behave as persuasive social agents that could be seamlessly integrated in the public discourse of social media platforms.
Professor Aiello’s work is at the forefront of an emerging field that combines computational social science, network science, and artificial intelligence. By analyzing vast amounts of digital data, he seeks to quantify human well-being and build systems that can improve it—whether in the context of health, urban living, or digital interactions. In his talk, he will explore the psycho-linguistic aspects of human interaction and how they can be translated into actionable insights for both human and AI-driven coordination.
Professor Aiello will be visiting Bergen and the MediaFutures research center from March 19th to 22nd, with his presentation scheduled for Friday, March 21st. We encourage you to join us for this insightful seminar, either in person or via the Zoom livestream.

About Luca Maria Aiello
Luca Maria Aiello is an Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computational social science, digital health, network science, and urban informatics. His work leverages large-scale digital data to explore and quantify key aspects of human life, with a particular focus on how language and communication shape our collective behaviors and well-being.
His research interests span multiple fields, including the role of language in coordinating social actions, the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to study social dynamics, and the development of AI systems that can influence and improve social interactions. Through his research, Professor Aiello aims to better understand how people interact, how these interactions can be optimized to address pressing global issues, and how AI can be used to augment, rather than replace, human communication.
A recognized leader in his field, Professor Aiello has contributed to numerous influential studies on the role of language in social media and digital interactions. One of his notable contributions includes a study published in Nature on the language of persuasion in social media, which explores how certain linguistic features can be used to influence public opinion and behavior.
Currently, his research focuses on using NLP techniques to quantify social and psychological experiences, with applications ranging from improving public health to enhancing urban living environments. Through his work, Professor Aiello continues to push the boundaries of what is possible at the intersection of social science and technology.

Mid-term evaluation of PhD candidate Bilal Mahmood
2025-04-03 15:30 - 16:30 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
On Thursday, April 3rd, PhD candidate Bilal Mahmood will have his mid-term evaluation.
Main supervisor: Mehdi Elahi
Co-Supervisor: Samia Touileb
External Evaluator: Sole Pera

Mid-term evaluation of PhD candidate Jia-Hua Jeng
2025-04-04 09:15 - 10:15 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
On Friday, April 4, PhD candidate Jia-Hua Jeng will have his mid-term evaluation.
Main supervisor: Christoph Trattner
Co-Supervisors: Erik Knudsen, Alain Starke
External Evaluator: Sole Pera

Talks on Responsible Recommender Systems
2025-04-04 10:45 - 13:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
April 4, MediaFutures sets the stage for a joined event featuring a series of talks, including contributions from Sole Pera (TU Delft) and the PhD candidates Lukas Wegmeth and Tobias Vente (University of Siegen).

10:45 – 11:45 | Sole Pera on “Into the AI-Known: How Search and Recommender Systems Shape Children’s Online Experiences & the Path to Safer Information Access”
12:00 – 13:00 | Lukas Wegmeth & Tobias Vente, “Green Recommender Systems – Minimizing Carbon Footprint for Sustainable Personalization”

Sole Pera, Associate Professor @ Delft University of Technology
Time: 10:45 – 11:45
Title: “Into the AI-Known: How Search and Recommender Systems Shape Children’s Online Experiences & the Path to Safer Information Access”
Abstract: In the AI era, search and recommendation systems increasingly shape how children perceive the world and interact with digital media. However, these systems are seldom designed with young users in mind, leading to exposure to content that is misleading, inappropriate, or simply not aligned with their needs. While AI has the potential to improve online information access, ensuring safe, effective, and age-appropriate digital experiences remains a challenge. In this talk, we will explore how mainstream search and recommendation algorithms influence what children encounter online. Along the way, we review current research, discuss the challenges and opportunities in building safer digital environments, and consider the ethical implications of designing AI-driven information access systems that prioritize children’s rights and well-being.
Dr. Maria Soledad Pera is an Associate Professor at the Web Information Systems group of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EWI), Delft University of Technology. Sole’s main area of expertise is in Information Retrieval with emphasis on non-traditional population.
Lukas Wegmeth & Tobias Vente, PhD candidates at University of Siegen
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Title: “Green Recommender Systems – Minimizing Carbon Footprint for Sustainable Personalization”
Abstract: Did you know one recommender systems research paper emits ~3,300 kgCO₂e — the same as one person flying from New York to Melbourne? This talk unveils the urgent need for Green Recommender Systems and delivers actionable guidelines to achieve them. We quantify the carbon footprint of training and inference, comparing deep learning and traditional algorithms. The goal? High-performance recommender systems that don’t cost the Earth. Discover how to minimize the carbon footprint while maintaining performance through energy-aware design, efficient hardware, and transparent reporting. This is a call to action: by rethinking how we design and measure recommenders, we can pioneer sustainable AI that benefits both users and the planet.
Lukas Wegmeth is a Ph.D. Student of the Intelligent Systems Group at the University of Siegen. Before joining the ISG he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Medical Computer Science at the University of Siegen. During his time as a graduate student, Lukas set his focus on the topic of Machine Learning and collaborated with different chairs of the University of Siegen to work on and release scientific research papers in the field. Lukas is currently analysing recommender systems from an energy efficiency context, measuring amongst other power consumptions.
Tobias is a joint Ph.D. candidate at the ISG – Intelligent Systems Group (University of Siegen) in Siegen, Germany and the ADReM – Adrem Data Lab (University of Antwerp) in Antwerp, Belgium, working on model selection and automation in recommender systems. Generally, his research interests revolve around Recommender Systems, specifically applying ideas from AutoML (Automated Machine Learning) to information retrieval and recommender systems.
To follow the talks online, follow us on zoom:
https://uib.zoom.us/j/65989683261?pwd=[REDACTED]

Mid-term evaluation of PhD candidate Khadiga Seddik
2025-04-04 14:00 - 15:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
On Friday, April 4th, PhD candidate Khadiga Seddik will have her mid-term evaluation.
Main supervisor: Erik Knudsen
Co-Supervisor: Damian Trilling, Alain Starke (Step-in)
External Evaluator: Sole Pera

Title: The Influence of News Recommender technology on Shaping Selective Exposure and Sharing.
Abstract:
Despite the benefits the news recommenders provide, overly personalized news recommendations and too much exposure to like-minded news can pose a threat to democracy by leading to filter bubble, echo-chambers, and political polarization. These negative consequences are not given, but they could depend on conditions and factors under which news recommenders amplify or reduce selective exposure. Many studies argue that news recommenders can be programmed to promote factors that reduce selective exposure because they are programmed by human beings, and they are dependent on the decisions surrounding the implementation and design of the technology. However, programming recommender systems to shape selective exposure is not a straightforward task, as we don’t know which factors the recommenders should be designed to promote, as well as how the recommenders should promote them. In this research project I investigate the heavily debated consequences of news recommender technologies, selective exposure and selective of like-minded news. The aim is to shift the scholarly attention from uncovering whether the current recommenders amplify or reduce selective exposure to understanding the conditions under which recommender systems do so, given that they are designed for that purpose. By doing so, we shift the responsibility for the democratic implications of recommenders from the technology itself to the decisions surrounding the implementation and design.
The project is a part of a larger project, the NEWSREC project (https://www.newsrec.ai). The main objective of NEWSREC project is to study, understand, and assess the precise conditions under which algorithmic news recommenders have positive or negative effects on the democratic role of the news media by focusing on both the input side and the output side of news recommenders.

MIX Innovation Day 2025
2025-05-09 11:00 - 14:00 | Media City Bergen, Atrium
Teklab from the Infomedia department in UiB invites to its yearly MIX Innovation Days. Happening in Media City Bergen on Friday May 9th at 11 o’clock, the final year students in media and interaction design (MIX) will pitch their design prototypes and value propositions at a lively event with co-students, university colleagues and industry partners.
The MIX Innovation Day has been held for several years, and is a vibrant arena where bachelor and master students in MIX present their design solutions and prototypes. A jury evaluates the prototypes and hands out the MVP Award – the Minimum Viable Proptotype Award.
At the MIX Innovation Day 2025 you can learn more about seventeen different designs created to tackle real-world challenges across a range of industries, including computer games, apps and web sites for partners as diverse as the Media Cluster Norway, Bergen Bysykkel and Parkinsonforbundet.
SIGN UP HERE
Program
The event takes place in the Atrium at Media City Bergen, Lars Hilles gate 30, next to the Bergen Light Rail station Nygård.
11:00 – 11.05. Welcome.
Our master of ceremony Joao Ribeiro will introduce the event.
11.05 – 12:00: Bachelor webdesign projects.
The five bachelor projects will be presented in a series of pitches with comments from the jury. Read all about the projects below.
12:00 – 13:30: Master safari and lunch.
The twelve master projects will be presented simultaneously at a “safari” where the audience walk from stand to stand and talk with the students and discuss the projects’ merits. Read all about the projects below.
You will also be able to enjoy your free lunch during this session.
13:30 – 13.40. Launch of “Håndbok i innovasjon for studenter”.
TekLab recently published the free online book “Håndbok i innovasjon for studenter” and today it will be officially launched. The TekLab project has spent several years writing it, and a large numer of students and teachers have been involved in the project.
13.40 – 14:00: Awards ceremony.
The jury will announce the winners of the MVP Award for the bachelor and master projects.
The MVP Award
A jury of professional designers will evaluate the projects and give the students valuable feedback. The jury will hand out the MVP award to the project that has the best chance of becoming a real product in the media industry, hence the name “minimum viable product” (MVP). There are separate prizes for the bachelor and master programs. The prize has been awarded for several years in a row, and you can read about the winners from 2024 and the winner from 2023.
The jury is:

Precilia Isaksen is a UX consultant at Bouvet. She was named Designer of the Week by UX Norway in 2024. Precilia is a former MIX student and has previously worked at TV 2.
Sofija Ivanova is a service designer at Youwell, a patient and health technology company. She is a board member of IxDA Bergen and has worked at several design agencies.
Iselin Kornli holds an MSc in innovation and entrepreneurship and has spent the past nine years leading innovation projects, coaching cross-functional teams, and helping to establish innovation environments in several major companies.

We are really grateful that Precilia, Sofija and Iselin will join us as jury members.
Organization
The event is organized by The department of information science and media studies at UiB in collaboration with Agenda Vestlandet. Agenda Vestlandet was established by Sparebanken Vest to drive the green transition in Vestlandet, and it supports research, innovation, and dialogue around regional challenges and opportunities.
The event is prepared and managed by MIX master students Anine Glenne Arnesen and Julie Teilstad Østby in collaboration with Joao Ribeiro, lead open innovation manager at GALP and a teacher at UiB, and professor Lars Nyre.

Trust and trustworthiness: The Rhetorical History of Trust in the Nordics
2025-05-19 11:00 - 16:00 | University of Bergen, Lauritz Meltzers hus (SV-bygget), Room: Vesletinget (Floor 2)
With talks by some of the best national and international researchers in trust and trustworthiness, this seminar explores trust as a historical, societal, and rhetorical phenomenon.
What is trust and trustworthiness in a rhetorical perspective? Can we talk about cultures of trust? What is a culture of trust? How does trust develop historically, and how do digital cultures influence trust and trustworthiness? Furthermore, how may we theoretically account for rhetorical trust and methodologically explore it?
This open and free seminar explores such questions. The seminar is organized by the research project “Trustworthiness: The Rhetorical History of Trust in the Nordics”.
The project examines why the Nordics are consistently among the world’s most trusting countries and explores how this trust is used to explain the stability, prosperity, and even happiness of the citizens in the Nordic countries.
Today, however, a wide range of factors threaten to overturn Nordic people’s propensity to trust each other, including an increasingly fragmented media landscape, as well as a more conflictual political atmosphere.
The renowned speakers in this open and free seminar addressees such issues of trust and trustworthiness.
Program
11.00-11.05: Welcome
11.05-11.25: The working group on Trustworthiness in the Nordic Countries: “Rhetorical trust”
11:25-12.25: Ute Frevert (Max Planck Institute): “Rhetorics and Politics of Trust in Modern Societies – A Historian’s Perspective”
The talk asks why modern societies care about trusting relations? What do they need trust for? What kind of work does trust do? Is trust synonymous with calculativeness, or does it go beyond an instrumental attitude? How do political systems – democratic and non-democratic handle trust?
12.25-13.00: Lunch
13.00-14.00: Helge Skirbekk (Oslo Met): “The historical development of Trust in Norway”
Norway is still characterised by high levels of trust, both in general and in public institutions. Why is this so, and why did it become so? In what is referred to as the Nordic model, there are several things that distinguish Norway from other Western countries. Among these are the high degree of labour organisation, the relatively small income differences, and the large extent of the public sector and the high level of taxes. But the high levels of trust cannot be understood without examining the relatively peaceful historical interactions between elites and population. Belonging to networks built on civic engagement can strengthen norms of mutual trust. I will investigate the emergence of unions and lay organisations, and their interplay with political elites in order to find an answer to this question.
14.00-14.45: Dag Wollebæk (Institute of Social Research): “Trust as sacred rhetoric”
In Norway, trust has become a foundational element of the national self-image. In public discourse, trust is often framed not merely as a strength, but as a sacred value: a non-negotiable, inviolable resource that must be protected at all costs. Drawing on the concept of sacred rhetoric (Marietta, 2008), I argue that the way we talk about trust affects political debate and institutional accountability in profound ways. Sacred rhetoric shifts public argumentation from the weighing of evidence and compromise to the invocation of moral absolutes, the discouragement of criticism, and the protection of power. While this rhetoric may encourage compliance and cooperation, it undermines deliberation and weakens critical vigilance. In this keynote, I examine how the rhetorical sacralization of trust affects democratic discourse in Norway. I argue that desacralizing the rhetoric of trust and shifting the focus from preserving trust to deserving trust would be desirable — to cultivate a political culture where institutions are not shielded by sacred narratives, but held accountable through reasoned scrutiny.
14.45-15.00 Break
15.00-15.30: Esther Oluffa Pedersen (Roskilde University): The Digital Society and Trust
Increasing digitalization raises the question how digital technologies influence relations of trust. This calls for an empirical and conceptual approach. Conceptually I argue that trust evolves between humans but is anchored within the individuals encountering each other with either trust or distrust. Affective and epistemic attitudes of trust or distrust are influenced by the individual’s prior experiences (e.g. betrayals of trust) and future goals (e.g. goals’ dependency on collaboration). Besides interpersonal relations trust also unfolds in institutional trust, trust in oneself and trust in technology. Thriving interpersonal and institutional trust are characterized by mutual assessments of trustworthiness and thus by reciprocity. Trust in technology is different as the non-agential technology does not reciprocate. Many argue that we do not trust but simply rely on technology. It is, however, an empirical fact that the other trust relations are influenced by digital technologies. I will exemplify this with the case of the Danish tax authorities’ fully automated property assessments. The property assessments were digitalized with the explicit ambition to recreate trust in the system of property taxation. Besides exceeding the budget, and as until now not completely implemented, the system has also been sending erroneous assessments out to the citizens.
15.30-16.00: Panel with presenters: How to study trust rhetorically and historically.
Would you to attend the seminar? Please send an email to: Olivia.Akerholm@student.uib.no

Phd Defense of Sohail Ahmed Khan
2025-06-03 09:15 - 15:00 | Ulrike Pihls Hus, Ulrikes aula, Professor Keysers gate 1, Bergen, Norway
On Tuesday, June 3rd, PhD candidate Sohail Ahmed Khan will defend his PhD thesis “Computational Visual Content Verification”. The trial lecture starts at 09.15, and the defense starts at 10.30.
In his dissertation, Sohail Khan explores how newsrooms verify visual user-generated content (UGC) and examines growing challenges related to manipulated media content such as deepfakes and cheapfakes. The dissertation analyses current verification practices in journalism, maps existing tools and workflows, and uncovers a clear gap between technological advances and newsroom practices.
Through the thesis, Sohail contributes both a critical review of the current verification landscape and new AI-based methods for detecting deepfakes and cheapfakes. The research also emphasises the need for closer collaboration between researchers and journalists, and highlights initiatives to build a research community around these challenges, including through international media verification competitions.
Opponents:

Professor Giulia Boato, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento
Associate Professor Nhien-An Le-Khac, School of Computer Science, University College Dublin

Chair of the committee: Professor Bjørnar Tessem
Chair of the defense: Professor Knut Helland

Japan-Norway Encounters 日本とノルウェーの出会い x Bergen HCI summer seminar
2025-06-04 10:00 - 17:00 | Morning: Auditorium Egget, Studentsenteret Finding your way, afternoon: Nordre Allmenning 3, Nygårdsgaten 5
On the 4th of June, MediaFutures professor Morten Fjeld as part of the HCI research group presents the HCI summer seminar with a special program for the attendees and three test-defenses of PhDs in HCI. Amongst them will be MediaFutures PhD candidate Peter Andrews (see program below).
We are proud to announce that we also got visiting researchers from the Tohoku University in Japan holding a presentation, as well as members of the UiB HCI research group presenting their work.
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a subject with implications for research and development (R&D) in areas such as education, health, engineering, architecture, and media. While innovation is key in advancing HCI itself, innovation is also needed to advance research and industry in these areas.
During this event you will be able to see selected results of the UiB HCI infrastructure project. Presentations will show cutting-edge research demonstrations including conversational agents (Peter), motion capture (Miroslav), gaze tracking (Yuki), AR/VR technology (Paulina, Floris), and digital biomarkers (Vegard). Some of these projects are partially supported by the UiB digital accessibility initiative.

The Program
Check out the Program below by clicking on the date.

Wednesday June 4th
Locations:
9.45-13.00 – Auditorium Egget Studentsenteret, Finding your way, Room layout
13.00- 17.00 – Nordre Allmenning 3 Nygårdsgaten 5, Conference center

Time
Wednesday June 4th

9:00
Picking up at Terminus entrance

9:15
Quick guidance at the Museum Garden

9:45
Welcome and opening remarks of HCI summer seminar / Announcements

10:00

PhD defense rehearsal talk:Human-AI Interaction for Video Content: Designing and Engineering Multimodal Conversational Agents
Peter Andrews, PhD candidate, UiB, Bergen
Abstract: This thesis unifies the second screening experience with Computer Vision (CV) and Deep Learning (DL), thereby building an interactive video framework following the From Video to Data → From Data to Narrative → From Narrative to Interaction paradigm. The result is a Multimodal Conversational Agent (MCA) that can hyper-contextualize video content. This video framework encompasses three research questions:1) How can recent advances in computer vision and artificial intelligence facilitate interaction with video content?2) How can interactive video increase subjective understanding of the content?3) How do young adults perceive the user experience of interactive video for news broadcasts?
Answering these questions gives a better grasp of what is needed to build an end-to-end interactive video framework with AI. At the same time, empirical research can show how the capabilities of the framework can improve user experience and comprehension.
To address these questions, I develop prototypes for interactive video in sports (football) and politics. I approached the video framework in a modular manner with four in-house design prototypes – FootyVision, the Automated Commentary System (ACS), AiCommentator, and AiModerator. Collectively, these four prototypes demonstrate how CV- and NLP-based event detection and LLM-powered MCAs can synchronize and facilitate real-time interaction with video content. I tested prototypes in lab-based mixed method studies and found that interactive video with MCA can enhance engagement, immersion, and subjective understanding. However, a Human-AI Interaction (HAI) trade-off between automation and user control occurs. While a high degree of automation can tightly synchronize the experience, it comes at the cost of user control. The affordances of MCA include multimodal feedback and remediation. Multimodal feedback supports subjective understanding, which aligns with the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML). Remediation involves repurposing traditional roles in innovative ways. MCAs achieve this by transforming sports commentators and political moderators into remediated personas, thus leading to increased engagement. Moreover, MCAs can also push the user into a more objective viewing state, highlighting a trade-off between objectivity and emotional involvement. Finally, trust is paramount for high-stakes environments where transparency is crucial.
Test opponent: Shlomo Berkovksy, Macquarie U., Australia

11:00

Keynote: Synthetic versus Real Media: From the age of signal processing to the battle between AI models
Prof. Giulia Boato, University of Trento, Italy
Abstract: Over the last few decades, the realism of synthetic media has increased dramatically. The multimedia research community has developed techniques to distinguish real and fake media, initially focusing on images and, more recently, videos. Early methods relied heavily on signal processing and artefact detection. However, in recent years, AI-generated media has become so hyper-realistic that it is perceived as “more real than real.” This has sparked the AI-versus-AI battle towards new defensive models.
Bio: Giulia Boato is a Full Professor at the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Italy. Since 2012, she has pioneered research at the intersection of signal processing, physiological signal analysis, and, more recently, advanced deep learning methods to distinguish between virtual and real humans. Her work also addresses various forms of digital media manipulation, with a recent focus on deepfake detection and forensic analysis in open-world scenarios such as social media. She has authored over 140 publications in international journals. Her research spans image and signal processing, multimedia data protection, and digital forensics. She is an elected member of both the IEEE Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee (MMSP TC) and the IEEE Information Forensics and Security Technical Committee (IFS TC).

12:00
Lunch, Cafe Smauet

13:00
(40 mins)

Short presentation: Tohoku University ICD lab
Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura (10 min): on the ICD Lab
Assist. Prof. Miao Cheng (5 min): Understanding emotion from bodily movements: database and cultural influence
Manato Abe, PhD student (5 min): Force Sensor Data Feedback Method for Industrial Robot-Arm Operation
Ryo Ooka, PhD student (5 min): Robotics-Enabled Spatial Information Experiences: Novel Presentation with Interactive Displays and Comfortable Furniture
Hongyue Xu, Master student (5 min): From Vision to Emotion: The Future of Human Health in the Age of AI
Yuhui Wang, Master student (5 min): Toward Practical VR: Designing Human-Centered Systems for Training and Well-being
Akira Murakami, Master student (5 min): Robotic Partitioning System for Adaptive Workspaces

13:50
(50 mins)

Short presentation: UiB HCI group
Prof. Morten Fjeld (5 min): From interactive tabletops to in-motion UIs
Prof. Frode Guribye (5 min): Research topic tbd
Assoc. Prof. Miroslav Bachinski (5 min): Simulating Users for Human-Computer Interaction
Yong Ma, Postdoc (5 min): Emotion-aware voice UIs
Pavel Okopnyi, Postdoc (5 min): Design Automation
Yuki Onishi, Postdoc (5 min): Production control room optimization with eye tracking technology
Paulina Becerril Palma, PhD student (5 min): Accessible Mixed Reality
Mahya Jahanshahikhabisi, PhD student (5 min): A Digital Approach to Dementia Research: Integrating Digital Tools, AI, and Personalized Interventions in Dementia Management
Vegard Bolstad, Master student (5 min): Drawn to Mind: Instrumenting fine motor hand movement for cognitive assessment and identification of digital biomarkers for dementia
Andreas Tjeldflaat, Bachelor student (5 min): Tangible Privacy and Privacy Perception

14:40
Coffee break

15:00

PhD defense rehearsal talk: AR for Maritime Collaboration: Using Augmented Reality to Facilitate Team Decision-Making, Team Situation Awareness, and Communication in Maritime Operations
Floris Hendrikus Johannes van den Oever, PhD candidate, UiB, Bergen
Abstract: High-quality collaboration is crucial for safe and efficient maritime operations. Collaboration is a factor in maritime operations, such as ship navigation, port construction, and maintenance of offshore units. A challenge for collaboration is that crewmembers have to share their different perspectives and information. Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to improve maritime collaboration through facilitating team decision-making, team situation awareness (TSA), and communication. This PhD project investigated the potential of AR in facilitating collaboration within maritime operations. It comprised three core studies: a systematic literature review, a laboratory study using virtual reality (VR), and a field study employing AR. The literature review examined current AR applications across various maritime operations, including ship navigation, construction, and maintenance. The laboratory and field studies focused on the use of AR for collaborative ship navigation, emphasizing three key constructs of collaboration: team decision-making, TSA, and communication, along with user experience, and the advantages and disadvantages of AR. Findings indicate that AR can aid communication by simplifying information gathering, displaying the same information to multiple crewmembers, displaying complementary information to different crewmembers, and providing visual tools like point of interest highlighting and crosshairs.
Test opponent: Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura, Tohoku, Japan

15:40

PhD defense rehearsal talk:Nature–Machine Entanglement: Interacting with Biologically-Informed Flying Robots
Ziming Wang, PhD candidate, Chalmers/Luxembourg/Stanford
Abstract: Nature and humanity have engaged in continuous, evolving interactions throughout history and across technological epochs. I hypothesize that integrating natural characteristics into robot design can enrich HCI by leveraging our deep-rooted familiarity and affinity with the natural world. To explore this, I conducted investigations focusing on close-range interactions with flying robots across various proxemic conditions, employing a mixed-methods approach.
Test opponent: Prof. Yoshifumi Kitamura, Tohoku, Japan

17:00
Closing remarks

19:00
Informal discussion and food/drinks, Amundsen Bar, Terminus

Thursday June 5th

ThursdayJune 5th

Venue

10:00
Picking up at Terminus entrance

10:15
Guided tour or MediaFutures office/research facility

MediaFutures, Media City Bergen

Friday June 6th

12.25
Pick up 12:25 in the atrium of Media City Bergen

MediaFutures, Media City Bergen

12:30-13:30
Guest lecture: Boosting User Trust to Increase the Uptake of Recommendations, Shlomo Berkovksy, Macquarie U., Australia
MediaFutures, Media City Bergen

Boosting User Trust to Increase the Uptake of Recommendations
2025-06-06 12:30 - 13:30 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We’re excited to welcome Professor Shlomo Berkovsky to MediaFutures for a special guest talk on June 6! Professor Berkovsky leads the Clinical AI and Sensing Technologies research stream at the Centre for Health Informatics, Macquarie University. His work explores the intersection of AI, health, and media technologies, including research on food recommender systems and user trust in recommendation interfaces.
Abstract of the talk:
The level of trust a user places in a recommender is crucial to the success of recommendations. Although prior work established factors that build and sustain user trust, their comparative power and impact on the uptake of recommendations received less attention. We conducted a user study examining the impact of various recommendation interfaces and content selection strategies on user trust. Following this, we conducted another study that evaluated the impact of including proponents (people or avatars) in the recommendation interface. We will discuss these results and implications on use and misuse in future recommendation interfaces.
About the Speaker:
Shlomo Berkovsky is the leader of the Interactive Medical AI research stream at Macquarie University. The stream focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods to develop usable patient models and personalised predictions of diagnosis and care. The stream also studies how clinicians and patients interact with health technologies and how Large Language Models can improve patient care. His other areas of expertise include user modelling, online personalisation, and behaviour change technologies.
We’ll meet you at 12:25 in the atrium of Media City Bergen and take you up to the MediaFutures office on the 3rd floor together.
Food will be served!
If you cannot join in person, you can follow the presentation on zoom by clicking here: https://uib.zoom.us/j/65067583768?pwd=[REDACTED]

fAIrgov-sluttkonferanse
2025-06-12 09:00 - 12:00 | Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Artificial intelligence is often described as the electricity of our time, and its development is accelerating. But what does this mean for the public sector, and what is needed to maintain public trust?

Public Fairness Perceptions of Algorithmic Governance (fAIrgov) is a research project at NORCE that, since 2018, has been exploring Norwegian attitudes toward the use of AI in the public sector. They now invite you to their final conference: a morning of reflections, insights, and discussion, featuring contributions from both researchers and public sector representatives.
Both academic and administrative staff at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies are welcome to attend the conference!
Registration form(Limited number of seats!)
Details of the fAIrgov Final Conference:

Date: June 12
Time: 09:00–12:00
Venue: Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen, Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Afterwards: Lunch and informal research meetups from 12:00–14:00

Preliminary Program:

09:00–09:30 – Doors open, coffee and mingling
09:30–09:45 – Opening remarks by Camilla Stoltenberg
09:45–10:05 – Case: AI in the Norwegian Tax Administration, by Nina Serdarevic
10:05–10:25 – Case: AI in NAV (Labour and Welfare Administration), by Robindra Prabhu
10:25–10:45 – Break
10:45–11:05 – Public support for AI, by Mikael Poul Johannesson, NORCE
11:05–11:50 – Panel debate: What does it take for the Norwegian public sector to be ready for the AI revolution?– with Camilla Stoltenberg, Annette Fagerhaug Stephansen, Sveinung Arnesen, Nina Serdarevic, Robindra Prabhu
11:50–12:00 – Closing remarks by Sveinung Arnesen, fAIrgov project leader
12:00–14:00 – Lunch and informal networking with researchers

The conference is free and open to everyone. It is particularly relevant for public sector employees, researchers, policymakers – and anyone curious about how AI might transform the public sector and affect us as citizens.
Follow the event Is the Norwegian Public Sector Ready for the AI Revolution? on Facebook for updates and a link to the livestream if you’d like to attend digitally.
