Lynda Hardman head of EIT ICT Labs' research action line 'ICT-mediated Human Activity'

Lynda Hardman of the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam has been appointed as head of the research action line ICT-mediated human activity of EIT ICT Labs.  EIT ICT Labs is the European consortium of top research institutes and leading industry partners that aims to accelerate innovation in Europe. At CWI, Lynda Hardman is head of the Information Systems research cluster and member of the Interactive Information Access research group. CWI is affiliate partner of EIT ICT Labs.

The mission of EIT ICT Labs is to turn Europe into a global leader in ICT Innovation. It aims to fulfill this mission by establishing partnerships between leading companies, research centres, and universities in Europe. To develop innovation catalysts, EIT ICT Labs has identified three strategic research action lines: Computing in the cloud, Internet Technologies and Architectures and ICT-mediated human activity.

The research action line ICT-mediated human activity, headed by Hardman, will explore how ICT can be used to transform human activity in profound ways. A deeper understanding of this transformation is indispensable when exploring and establishing new practices within an information society. ICT enables novel extensions of human senses and interaction capabilities while at the same time supporting existing fundamental human communication and information needs. Underlying human communication needs include, for example, directed user communication, information access, broadcasting and publishing, and social bonding.

On March 29th Hardman coordinated an initial working meeting with other ICT Labs partners to establish four themes that will form initial focal points within the research action line. The areas identified were human behaviour, mediated presence, multimodal interaction and the role of design and the arts.

More information:
EIT ICT Labs:  http://eit.ictlabs.eu/
Lynda Hardman: http://www.cwi.nl/~lynda/