From Software through Art to Social Entrepreneurship

Speaker:
Letizia Jaccheri, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Abstract:
The main goal of Jaccheri's research through 30 years is to understand software by empirical studies. While researchers traditionally use students as subjects to pilot studies before they are carried out in industrial environments, the supporting pillar of her working method is to set up studies with students that go beyond the contribution to scientific literature and identify benefits for other stakeholders. The four primary actors are: students, instructors, industry, and researchers. Later in her studies she has identified issues that appear at the intersection between art and software. Artistic software projects have often a social goal and are highly innovative. Her studies in art and software have given the ground for two research directions. The first is maker movement and its role in educational practices. Typical topics of interest vary from engineering oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3D printing to the use of art and craft. Leveraging the beneficial outcomes from the Maker Movement approach and programming languages designed for children, together with a group of researchers and artists, she has designed, implemented and evaluated workshop programs. In her studies she has identified the important factors that characterize the design of the activities and the main aspects of children's engagement in such software intensive activities. The second research direction is to harness the power of big data, increase collective and individual awareness about societal problems and ultimately create the needed intelligence that will lead entrepreneurs and policy makers to innovative solutions for societal challenges towards a sustainable society.

Biography:
Letizia Jaccheri (Ph.D. from Politecnico di Torino, Italy) is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Jaccheri’s research is on: software engineering; entertainment computing; computational creativity; ICT-enabled social innovation. Jaccheri is the Norwegian representative and Vice President of IFIP TC14 on Entertainment Computing. She has published more than 200 papers in International conferences and journals. She has been teaching courses in software engineering at various levels since 1994. She has supervised PhD students, Post-doctoral students and acted as opponent for national and international defences. From 2015 to April 2018 she was independent director of Reply S.p.A, an IT company with 6000 employees world wide. She has been general chair of IFIP ICEC 2015, co-chair of ACM IDC 2018, and Program Chair of the European Computer Science Summit 2018. She participates to several Horizon 2020 projects, among which INITIATE INnovation through bIg daTa and socIal entrepreneurship; UMI-Sci-Ed Exploiting Ubiquitous Computing, Mobile Computing and the Internet of Things to promote STEM Education; SOCRATIC SOcial CReATive IntelligenCe Platform for achieving Global Sustainability Goals. 
Letizia Jaccheri is passionate about dissemination of computer science and research to the general public and to contribute to recruit female students to computer science and research.

Host: Dr. Monica Landoni