U!REKA Innovative Governance and Citizen Engagement CoE online workshop

Warm welcome to the online workshop, organised by U!REKA’s Innovative Governance and Citizen Engagement Centre of Expertise, on Wednesday, October 21st, from 14:00 – 16:00 (CEST).

What is this workshop about?

This online workshop focuses on Digital Humanism for Health and Well-being, bringing together colleagues interested in strengthening collaboration and developing concrete joint initiatives in this area. The workshop aims to provide an inspiring space for exchanging ideas, identifying synergies, and building project and paper ideas.

The workshop will begin with a keynote presentation and be followed by an interactive discussion.

Researchers interested in taking part should use their institutional email address to join the Teams event link. For further questions, please contact the Innovation Director Anita Ahlstrand from Metropolia UAS: .

Keynote

The focus is on Digital Humanism for Health and Wellbeing, with a keynote presentation by Dr. Mag. Alexander Schmölz from University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna:

• As digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) rapidly permeate health sectors, workplaces, and daily routines, society faces a profound paradox: while automated systems offer new computational efficiencies, they simultaneously introduce severe risks of digital burnout, algorithmic surveillance, and social alienation. In sensitive domains such as mental health, the increasing deployment of generative AI chatbots for therapeutic support and interpersonal guidance illustrates a dangerous conflation of technical reliance with genuine human trust.
• Because AI systems lack consciousness, bodily vulnerability, and moral agency, attempting to delegate relational care to synthetic proxies threatens to erode essential human relations in the health sector, obscure accountability, and isolate vulnerable individuals.
• This keynote positions Digital Humanism and existing studies on health and digital media as an ethical framework to navigate these disruptions and steer technological adoption toward health shared human wellbeing. At its core, Digital Humanism redefines the conditio humana by ascribing calculative, rule-based rationality to machines, thereby liberating humans for uniquely human capacities—such as empathy, co-creativity, ethical judgment, and authentic care.

Link for MS Teams