Project meeting and UCL diary studies

The project team met up mid-May in the beautiful Cockerham countryside near Lancaster to discuss progress and plans for the various research strands of the project. Judith also gave an introduction on how she sees her role developing over the coming months. Pleased to say the weather was set fair.

UCL began their series of 7 day diary studies with older people in and around London later on this month. We have asked people to take photos of the most interesting technologies in their days to discuss with us at the end of the week. We have had some very informative responses so far and it has been wonderful to see all of the creative submissions; written, photos and video diaries that our participants have submitted. We are still looking for new participants for this study, so if you or anyone you know would be interested in taking part, please do email us at e.soubutts@ucl.ac.uk.

A reminder that our INTERACT 2023 workshop is still open for submissions until June 19th. If you are an academic, PhD Student, Postdoc or industry person working with either older adults, technology or AI, please do submit a position paper to us through: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aitoa23.

We also have a website live at: https://aitoa2023.wordpress.com/ for further info.

On 24th May, Judith took part in a Lancaster-based Policy Masterclass facilitated by HM Government’s Open Innovation team, which runs sessions as part of the University’s involvement in the HM Government’s Open Innovation Partnership. The session covered what it’s like to work with HM Government and how to influence policy-making processes and considered policymaking in theory and practice. This was followed by a Policy Masterclass on ‘Storytelling in Policy’ the next day, which provided useful tips on how to use storytelling techniques as communication strategies to convey complex information to policymakers.