Participants 2022

Adin Alispahić

 Student of product design in Academy of Fine Arts, Adin Alispahich (b. 1999) graduated two highschools in Zenica, one a Musical art highschool and the other catholic highschool “Sv. Pavao”. At the same time got a C 1.1 certificate in English language. After finishing highschool enrolled into a faculty of chemical engineering and after a year decided to choose another path, the path of “art”.
Instead of going towards music he started studying product design and history of arts on the Academy of fine arts in Sarajevo. Currently he is doing projects such as designing things from one time use plastics, making use of metal and wood combinations, designing architecture like parks and buildings (from buildings and sceneries for movies to galleries for locations in Sarajevo). He throughout studying history fine arts, music, and movies found a thin line connecting all of the moments from the past with today, his constant communication with philosophy students from Sarajevo drives him to design and make a better future. He is constantly evolving and learning how to apply the knowledge of the past with the unknown of tomorrow. With the dream of connecting the future with today in the most ethical way.
 

Adna Šišić

Artist, Researcher, Restorer, Student at the university of University of Sarajevo (Academy of Fine Arts and Faculty of Science)

 I am currently studying Conservation and Restoration at two faculties in Sarajevo. I also studied Sociology and Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy for one year. I am currently working on a collaboration with a Spanish restorers and students. I graduated from the School of Geodesy and Civil Engineering and therefore I also did geodetic work and researches. Now my research is based mostly on Film and Art History as well as the History of the Artifacts I am working on. I am currently working on 3D models of sculptures that need restoration in various applications. My field of study helps me learn more about the past and I try my best to combine it with the today. Through restauration I can feel the past and use my knowledge to create the future.

Anastasia Nefeli Vidaki

 Anastasia Nefeli Vidaki was born and raised in Athens. She completed her bachelor studies in Law in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During her studies, she spent a semester at the University of Cologne and carried through an internship at the Permanent Representation of Greece to the EU. She is currently pursuing a MsC on Law and ICT at the University of Piraeus and a LLM on Sociology of Law, Science and Technology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her thesis focused on the digitalisation of justice on a legal and ethical level and on the use of facial recognition technologies and their impact on the notion of faciality respectively. She is a trainee lawyer, fond of new technologies and ethics and the administrator of a website on world art. She has attended many seminars and completed online courses on the fields of her interest and has participated in conferences in Greece and abroad. Articles of hers have been published in student law journals. Last year she was a member of an International Legal Research Group on Human Rights and Technology. She is a fluent speaker of 6 foreign languages, including English, German, French, Arabic, Farsi and Korean.

Cristina Bodnărescu

 Cristina Bodnărescu is an interdisciplinary artist who experiments with and integrates new technologies in the visual and performative arts, being preoccupied with the body-nature-technology relationship, in a posthuman research framework. Recent projects involve creative programming and working with sensors for interactive installations addressed to both the public and performers, as well as works of experimental video art. As part of the Robots in Residence program (2021) she worked alongside the robot Nao, teaching her new skills. She handled the interaction design for the collaborative installation Out of The Box (2021) exhibited at the Festival of Lights Lyon and created A Blatant Schism (2021), a short film based on a book of personal unconventional poems with AR inserts. In her spare time she creates experimental ambient music as part of the duo Ethics Of Joy. She develops her interests for machine learning, AI, interactivity systems and the technological mediated body at the CINETIC and CESI research centres in Bucharest, where she is currently studying. Her personal works and in collaboration were exhibited nationally and internationally at Fête des Lumières Lyon, Simultan Festival, Amural Festival, Clujotronic, Blue Biennale.

Davor Ljubenkov

 Davor Ljubenkov is an Executive Manager for EU Public Policy Affairs regarding AI and Emerging Tech at Fujitsu Belgium, and also a Brussels based research fellow in the fields of ethical AI policymaking, innovation and technology management. His formal education is rooted in interdisciplinary computer science, mainly immersive virtual environments and data analytics. He obtained a double
MSc. in Data Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship as a joint graduate at TU Eindhoven, KTH Stockholm and MIT Senseable City Lab, with a special focus on machine learning, neural networks and data visualization in the context of smart cities. His second joint MSc. in Digital Technology Management and Digital Communication Leadership was successfully achieved at Salzburg University, AAU Copenhagen, VUB (AI Experience Center) and UCLA (Ed&IS, Digital Cultures Lab). Main research area of this joint degree was ethical AI governance, public policy innovation and regulation of digital technologies. Most recently he was nominated as a candidate for a Fulbright Schuman pre-doctoral research on trustworthy AI at Harvard 2022/2023 pending a grant approval.

Katerina Petelova

 My background is in both biology and programming. In high school I did a lot of maths and went to programming competitions and IT seminars. There I was exposed to various technologies, including machine learning, gained useful skills and met interesting people. While I enjoyed maths and programming very much, I also became curious about how people function at a physiological level. Started
reading a lot about advances in biotechnology and was absolutely fascinated by new scientific inventions. That is why I did my undergrad in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Due to my interdisciplinary experience, I have had various interesting opportunities available to me. My dissertation was related to
cancer metastasis, but working on it involved a fair amount of programming and statistics. Currently, I am in the field of bioinformatics, building software for a clinical genetics laboratory. I am both very excited and concerned about the future of humanity and am particularly interested in the roles that biology and information technologies are playing to shape it. I applied for the EthicAI=LABS project, because I am keen to meet interesting people and work with them.

Lida Zacharopoulou

 Lida Zacharopoulou is a data analytics engineer and creative coder from Athens, Greece. She holds a BSc in Informatics and Telecommunications from the University of Athens and an MSc in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media from Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She has worked as a software engineer at CERN, where she focused on the software quality assurance of the power control system of the accelerators, and then as a graduate researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, where she developed her master thesis on activities of daily living recognition using machine learning. She is currently based in Athens and works in data analytics. As a creative coder, she has taken part in festivals, such as Sónar+D (Affective computing for learning through games challenge, Barcelona 2019) and ProgramaLaPlaza (Medialab-Prado, Madrid 2019). She has also volunteered as a coding instructor in workshops aimed at women and teenage refugees (Code it Like a Girl, Refugee Code Week). Passionate about machine learning and human-computer interaction, her interests lie in exploring creative ways to use coding and data, the democratization of AI as a creative tool, and the discussions emerging from using algorithms in the arts.

Lidia Stanulova

 Lidia Stanulova is born in 1996 in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2015 she graduated from the National School of Fine Arts 'Ilia Petrov'. In 2019 she graduated from the National Academy of Art Sofia, majoring in Industrial Design. She did her diploma thesis in the field of automotive design and space exploration. Her project 'NOAH: Moon Exploration Rover' was a finalist in the 'Product Design' category at Zagreb Design Week 2020 (Croatia) and participated in the 54th International Car Show 2019 in Belgrade (Serbia). Currently she in her second year of masters in Game Design at the National Academy of Art. During her studies Lidia participated three times in the 'Erasmus+' programme studying Design in Northern Italy and doing an internship at an automobile company in Barcelona, Spain. Recently she has returned from Rome, Italy where she did an exchange semester at Quasar Institute for Advanced Design. In the summer of 2021, she was one of the three visual artists selected by the 180-Degrees Festival team to work with students from IEMA-Frankfurt. The performance was presented in Goethe-Institut Sofia and in Frankfurt. Lidia is awarded in various competitions and has taken part in different festivals, projects and exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad

Livia Zaharia

 By profession, Livia Zaharia is an architect. However, she had various interactions with mixed media content due to a tendency for more abstract shapes and computer programs (Such as Rhino-Grasshopper, a bit of scripting in C# and Python recently). So aside from the usual work of her job, she tends to experiment with parametric modelling of shapes in different forms. Mostly smaller ones such as accessories for her jewelry that she wants to grow into a business. Each one of those creations has a script of their own and is a way of creating complex shapes using digital technology. The idea of integrating technology more into our daily lives is reflected in her shapes. The saying goes 'Form follows function'- however how that 'follow' is done, that is another story. There are multiple kinds of builds to be explored for various functions-just like parameters you input for a result. Aside from form-finding operation, there is also a personal interest in the way AI could help. Since it could help in managing diabetes, a condition she has and is monitoring using CGM, like many around the world. If data can help generate shapes why would it not help keep your blood sugar in check?In the summer of 2021, she was one of the three visual artists selected by the 180-Degrees Festival team to work with students from IEMAFrankfurt. The performance was presented in Goethe-Institut Sofia and in Frankfurt. Lidia is awarded in various competitions and has taken part in different festivals, projects and exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad

Matei Stanciugelu

 Matei Stanciugelu is currently a first year Masters Student in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Bucharest. He graduated with a BA in Philosophy from Warwick University in 2021, specialising in critical thinking, epistemology and logic. His current research interests revolve around the concept of Ethics in A.I., with a focus on platforms, privacy and data collection, and surveillance capitalism. He is also working as a Research Assistant with the task of analysing existing impact assessment frameworks in the field of data protection and ethics, within the scope of law enforcement and wider industry and ensuring that they are compliant with existing EU regulation. In the near future he hopes to continue his research on the ethical implications of A.I. technology at a doctorate level.

Mihaela Dobreva

 Mihaela Dobreva, born 19th Sept 1993, Sofia, Bulgaria, holds BA and MA degree in Scenography from National Academy of Arts Sofia. Currently she is a PhD candidate in the Digital arts department of NAA and she works as full time assistant professor in the Scenography department, where she is teaching the Computer graphics and animation courses. Mihaela Dobreva is the co-founder and current director of the artistic collective SAPROMAT together with Boris Daltchev. The primary focus of their artistic work and research is situated in the fields of cite specific, interactive and immersive art, sculpture, installation and
performance. Their first performance as a collective “Phantasm” was nominated for the IKAR prize in 2021 in the category “Contemporary dance and performance”. Also her professional CV includes more than 20 theatre and dance performances performed in the theatres around Bulgaria where she has worked as set and costume designer and multimedia artist. Her fields of interest vary in a wide specter including digital arts, creative coding, CAD programs as well as cultural managing (from 2020 she is working as program manager for 180 degrees festival for innovative arts).

Tamara Vukičević

 Tamara Vukičević was born in Split in 1997. where she completed elementary education and high school. In 2016, she enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb, where she is currently in her final year. Since the beginning of her studies, she has been involved in the work of the CroMSIC Medical Students Association, and since 2020, as a Local Officer for Human Rights and Peace, she has advocated an active approach to the rights of vulnerable groups in society. She is a member of the board of the Josip Sruk Sekularist Foundation and the
Protagora Association, for the protection of the rights of non-religious persons and the promotion of non-religious understanding of the world.Since 2021, she has been a member of the ACWAY International Youth Association, which promotes interreligious and intercultural dialogue, and the Regional Women's Lobby of Southeast Europe (RWLSEE). She is a member of the Ocean Knowledge Youth Association and the Green Window Forum for Sustainable Development, where she also works as an educator. She attended the Summer School of Social Democracy (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung) and the School of Social Justice (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung), European Green Activists Training (Forum for Sustainable Development Green Window) and Regional Academy for women’s leadership and mediation.

Tarik Spahić

 University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Traffic and Communications, Computer Science Current freshmen student, born in 2002, with different passions and many hobbies, one of which, putting thoughts and ideas into code which is also my current studying field. Since a young age, the love for computers and the curiosity for all the zeroes and ones that make programs work and function grew and thankfully it stayed that way for the rest of my life. The road of hobbies and passions was all over the place, from sewing to craftsmanship to painting and musical composition… I was trying many things and loving most of them, but priorities are fixed and goals exist to be achieved. A love for art and philosophy grew on me for the past 3 years, which lead to some artworks, poems and novels, which still need to be worked on and published, but compared to the previous Tarik from years ago, this time I kept pushing these passions. An interest for languages fuels parts of my intrigue and curiosity also, but achievements in that regard are minimal; German C2 certified @ Goethe Institut and fluent in English. Straight A student from the age of 6 till 19, on-the-rise amateur billiard player, weekend programmer and a coffee loving philosopher.

Tea Rukavina

 Tea Rukavina (born in Croatia in 1988) is a Data Scientist based in Paris. She works on the development of machine learning applications for solving different industrial problems ranging from decision-making in engineering and management, to process optimisation and predictive maintenance. She has earned her PhD in Computational Mechanics in 2018 as a joint doctorate between the
University of Technology of Compiègne (France) and University of Rijeka (Croatia). As a member of the Women & AI workgroup of the Cercle InterElles (a network that brings together 16 tech companies in France around the topic of gender equality in the workplace), she has been able to explore different facets of bias in artificial intelligence, including gender bias. She has helped create and launch a Pledge to build more responsible AI applications lead by the principles of data governance, accountability, and team diversity. Tea is passionate about science communication and as the Croatian winner of FameLab in 2015 she participated in the international final in the UK. She enjoys giving talks about science, technology and artificial intelligence, with the goal of motivating young generations to pursue careers in STEM.

Vivian Stamou

 Vivian Stamou is currently a PhD candidate in the field of Computational Psycholinguistics at the Faculty of Philology (NKUA, University of Athens) and a Research Associate at the Institute of Language and Speech Processing (ILSP/Athena R.C.). Previously, she attended a MSc program in “Computational Linguistics” at the Institute for Natural Language Processing (IMS), University of Stuttgart, while she holds a B.A. in Classical Languages, Literature and Linguistics (Department of Philology, NKUA). She has also worked as a Computational Linguist at the Speech & Sound group, Sony European R&D Center (Stuttgart) and at Omilia Ltd (Athens). Her research interests focus on weird formations of language, natural language processing, computational clinical psychology and humancomputer interaction.