Insights

Date: 28. & 29. October 2021

The Digital Democracy workshop is co-organized by the Democracy Community of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) and the Digital Democracy Lab (DigDemLab) at the University of Zurich. It aims to facilitate exchange among scholars from different substantive fields working on these topics. 

Transformation of the textile industry from push to pull production through digitalization Development of a platform on which clothing can be digitally tried on and purchased using a personal 3D avatar. The platform integrates all players in the supply chain and, by switching from push to pull production, has the… Read More »2021.1 Transformation textile industry

AlgorithmWatch Switzerland and AlgorithmWatch have published the new paper “Automated Decision-Making Systems in the Public Sector: An Impact Assessment Tool for Public Authorities”. The publication was written by DSI team member Michele Loi in collaboration with Anna Mätzener, Angela Müller, and Matthias Spielkamp.

With the tool, the authors aim to contribute to the discussion around impact assessment of ADM systems by providing a concrete proposal on how ethical principles can be operationalized in the context of such an assessment. The checklists they have developed for this purpose are directly applicable as a tool for public authorities.

The DSI/DIZH Data Donation Lab was initiated to promote and facilitate research with data gathered through data donations – a relatively new methodological approach. Data donation refers to the active consent of an individual user to donate her or his personal digital trace data for research purposes. 

The new project financed by BAKOM combines natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning with civil society engagement to analyse the prevalence of online hate speech on Twitter in Switzerland and to identify effective strategies to counter it. The project is a collaboration between alliance F (Federation of Swiss Women’s Associations), the Digital Democracy Lab (UZH) and the Immigration Policy Lab (ETH).

In many professions where personal contact with people is paramount, digitalisation has a difficult time. But digital tools can also make midwives’ work easier in obstetrics. DIZH fellow Michael Gemperle tells you what digitalisation can do in obstetrics – and what it can’t.

Alice Delorme Benites from the ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics knows that machine translation systems are popular among ZHAW researchers. As part of a DIZH Fellowship and a DFF project, she is investigating how to use machine translation for papers, abstracts or research proposals and what to consider. 

DIZH Fellow Christiane Hohenstein of the ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics is conducting research to make it easier for people who communicate in sign language to study in the digital age. The aim is to develop an app that enables people who communicate in sign language to learn academic vocabulary and expand their academic language.

Rebecca Brauchli is responsible for the program office of the DIZH innovation program.  She revealed to ZHAW in an interview why she has the perfect qualifications for the job, what exactly the innovation program is and where she feels digitalization in her everyday life.