Talks and presentations

10.-11. April 2025, Warsaw, Poland. Conference: Automating welfare: Policy implications of AI in the Digital Welfare States. Organised by AUTO-WELF team. More information about the conference here.

30 March, 2025, Lund, Sweden. Presentation at Estniska Huset I Lund.

Maris Männiste gave a presentation titled ”Riiklikust juturobotist nutikateni ülekäiguradadeni: võimu ümberjaotamine ja kodaniku-riigi suhete ümberkujundamine?” at Estonian house in Lund and introduced project results in Estonian to the Swedish Estonians.

26 March, 2025, Malmö, Sweden. Faculty of Culture and Society higher seminar.

Maris Männiste introduced the results from Estonian case studies during the higher seminar in presentation titled ”From chatbots to smart pedestrian crossings: Reshuffling power and transforming citizen–state relations?”

25 March, 2025, Vienna, Austria. Künstliche Intelligenz im öffentlichen Sektor” [Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector]

Anne Kaun gave a keynote presentation. More information about the event: https://www.unesco.at/ueber-uns/oesterreichische-unesco-kommission/news-oesterreichische-unesco-kommission/article/veranstaltung-kuenstliche-intelligenz-im-oeffentlichen-sektor

28 January, 2025, AI Lund, Fika-till-fika AI i offentlig sektor.

Amela Muratspahić gave a presentation in Swedish on datafication and automation at the Swedish Public Employment Service. Event recording: https://www.ai.lu.se/sv/2025-01-28

24 -27 September, 2024. ECREA 2024. Communication and social (dis)order. Ljubljana, Slovenia.

25 September, 2024. Panel “Automation and surveillance in governance” 

  • Amela Muratspahic. From decisions to data: Datafication and automation in the Swedish Public Employment Service

25 September, 2024. Panel ”Communal welfare: Reimagining automated welfare provision” (chaired by Stine Lomborg & Rikke Frank Jørgensen. ECREA 2024 conference ”Communication and (dis)order”.

  • Doris Allhutter, Astrid Mager and Rafaela Cavalcanti de Alcântara. Communal Infrastructures of Welfare: public value, data extractivism and data justice.
  • Christian Pentzold, Emma Hughes. How to make smart place? Competitive space use, administrative overload, and holistic aspirations.
  • Anne Kaun, Maris Männiste. Sensing the city: Smart traffic AI as communal welfare infrastructures.

27 September, 2024. Panel “(Dis-) ordering datafication and automation: Towards people-centred ADM” (chaired by Stine Lomborg and Anne Kaun). ECREA 2024 conference ”Communication and (dis)order”. In addition to presentations by Hadley Beresford and Kaarina Nikunen, following AUTO-WELF researchers presented:

  • Maris Männiste. Reimagining the interaction between the state and the citizen through a state-wide chatbot.
  • Emma Hughes. ’Warm’ human interactions vs. ‘cold’ technological solutions – The case of Maternal Benefit.
  • Stine Lomborg. Critical companionship for good datafield futures.

28.-30. August, 2024, Tampere, Finland. ESPAnet Annual Conference 2024.

Anne Kaun gave a keynote titled: ”Digital Vulnerabilities in Automated Welfare:Moving Beyond Scandals Towards the Mundane”. ESPAnet Annual Conference 2024.

16.-19. July, 2024, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. EASST-4S 2024 conference ”Making and doing transformations.”

  • 19 July, 2024. Panel ”Infrastructures of welfare”. (Chaired by Doris Allhutter)

Anila Alushi. Experience and challenges in the datafication of health: exploring ADM systems in a multi-professional primary care unit, the Community House.

Astrid Mager. Data forensics in the welfare state. Semi-automated fraud detection between scientific evidence and individual instinct.

Rafaela del Alcantara, Doris Allhutter. Expectations of ADM and urban data management imagined futures 

Karolina Sztandar-Sztanderska, Joanna Mazur. Politics and algorithmic articulation of law: development of profiling algorithm in Polish labour market policies.

  • 19 July, 2024. Panel ”Unpacking the hype: critical approaches to psychedelic studies”

Celina Strzelecka. Balancing narratives: ethical considerations in AI-driven psychedelic research.

18 – 20 June, 2024, Copenhagen, Denmark. 5th Street-level Bureaucracy Conference.

Karolina Sztandar-Sztanderska gave a presentation titled ”How context matters: Human oversight of automated-decision-making systems in welfare administration”.

1.-2. February 2024 Leipzig, Germany – Conference: Big Data Discourses Communicating, Deliberating, and Imagining Datafication

Conference organised by German AUTO-WELF PI Christian Pentzold and Charlotte Knorr.

Several members from the AUTO-WELF team (Doris Allhutter, Astrid Mager, Anne Kaun, Sebastian Sosnowski, Mateusz Trochymiak, Amela Muratspahić, Maris Männiste) presented preliminary results from different AUTO-WELF case studies.

23.-24. October 2023 (virtual engagement) – Nethope Global Summit

Postdoc Benjamin Schwarz from Danish team presented on the topic “Denmark: Transformation of the analogue into the digital welfare state“

26 September 2023 Berlin, Germany. Public Interest AI – workshop.

Researchers Doris Allhutter, Emma Hughes, Sebastian Sosnowski, Christian Pentzold participated at a workshop which concentrated on the public interest AI and gave a presentation on the topic ”AI in Welfare: public policies, public interest, and political mandate”.

13.-15. September 2023 Milano, Italy – XVI ESPAnet Italy Conference Welfare systems in transition: between equity and sustainability

Researchers (Anila Alushi, Emma Hughes, Christian Pentzold, Alice Mattoni) from AUTO-WELF Germany and Italy team gave a presentation on the topic ”Towards a mapping of ADM systems in 8 European countries”.

7.-9. September 2023 Warsaw, Poland – 21st ESPAnet Annual Conference 2023 on ‘Challenges for the welfare state in turbulent times’.

AUTO-WELF PI-s Karolina Sztandar-Sztanderska, Doris Allhutter together with Minna van Gerven, Stefano Sacchi chaired a panel Disruptive digital welfare states: how automation impacts the welfare state and citizen-state-relations’

7.-9. September 2023 Warsaw, Poland – 21st ESPAnet Annual Conference 2023 ”Challenges for the welfare state in turbulent times”

Researchers (Monika Berdys, Sebastian Sosnowski, Celina Strzelecka) from AUTO-WELF Poland team gave a presentation on the topic ”Datafication and its Impact: Mapping the Landscape of Automated Decision-Making in Polish Welfare System”.

16.-18. August 2023 Bergen, Norway – NordMedia23 ”Technological Takeover? Social and Cultural Implications – Promises and Pitfalls”

Professor Anne Kaun (AUTO-WELF Project Lead and Sweden team) gave a presentation on the topic ”Digital matchmaking: the role of incubators and matching platforms for the digital welfare state”.

20 June 2023 Copenhagen, Denmark – WORKSHOP: Digital and sensory expertise.

Postdocs Maris Männiste and Benjamin Schwarz participated at the workshop and talked about insights from Estonian and Danish welfare state.

19.-20. June 2023 Cardiff, UK – Third International Data Justice Conference Collective Experiences in the Datafied Society

PhD Researcher Rafaela Alcantara from AUTO-WELF Austrian team gave a presentation on the topic of ”Smart cities and feminist perspectives on the urban space: Connecting the dots towards the right to the city”.

6 June 2023 Vienna, Austria – Infrastrukturen der Zukunft: Wie kann TA anstehende Transformationen begleiten? Internationale Konferenz TA23, Austrian Academy of Sciences.

PhD Researcher Rafaela Cavalcanti de Alcantara from Austrain team presented her research titled: ““Smart city” initiatives and welfare: reflections on the datafication of urban life.”

In addition, Postdocs Benjamin Schwarz and Maris Männiste gave a presentation on the topic of “Reconceptualizing the ‘state’ in the age of automatization“.

15.-17. March 2023 Aachen, Germany – STS-Hub.de 2023 Conference: Circulations, Panel: Cyborgs, Grenzobjekte, Diffractions & Co: Die feministischen Wurzeln der STS und ihre Zirkulierungen.

Associate Professor Doris Allhutter from AUTO-WELF Austrian team gave a talk about on the topic of ”„Algorithmen im Sozialstaat neu-materialistisch gedacht.“