Digital Humanism Salon
Welcome to the Open Austria: Digital Humanism Salon with OPEN AUSTRIA and CITRIS!
We invite you to a morning full with insights on the topic with speakers Claudia Von Vacano, Jill Finlayson, David Lindeman and Ludovit Garzik.
Agenda:
10:00 am - 10:10 am:
Welcome with
CITRIS Director of Corporate Partnerships Julie Shapiro
Introduction to CITRIS and the Banatao Institute
OPEN AUSTRIA Co-Director Isabella Tomás
Impact of Open Austria
10:10 am - 11:00 am Claudia Von Vacano on Digital Humanities at Berkeley
11:00 am - 11:20 am Jill Finlayson on the Cal Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
11:20 am - 12:00 pm David Lindeman & Ludovit Garzik on AI and Responsible Innovation
12:00pm - 12:15 pm Optional Tech Museum Tour
12:20 - 1:00pm Lunch (optional)
Bios:
Dr. Claudia Von Vacano is the Executive Director of the D-Lab and the Digital Humanities at Berkeley (a minor and certificate program), and is on the boards of the Social Science Matrix and Berkeley Center for New Media. She has worked in policy and educational administration since 2000, and at the UC Office of the President and UC Berkeley since 2008. Dr. von Vacano’s methodological expertise areas include program evaluation, qualitative methods, research design, text analysis, digital humanities and data science.
David Lindeman is the executive director of CITRIS Health. Lindeman has worked in the fields of health care and long-term care for nearly 40 years as a health services researcher and gerontologist, conducting research related to health care technology, assistive technologies, chronic disease management, healthy aging, disabilities, dementia, community-based and residential services, health care workforce, and family caregiving. His current focus is working with researchers, entrepreneurs and investors on the incubation, startup, evaluation and scaling of technology-enabled health care solutions, including initiatives that address critical health care challenges through mobile/cloud, sensors/IoT, telehealth, robotics, assistive technologies and data analytics (AI/machine learning).
Dr. Ludovit Garzik is CEO of Innovation Orbit and author of Successful Innovation Systems (Springer, 2021). He previously served as Managing Director of the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development for nearly 19 years, where he also led the Austrian Council for Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
A global innovation expert, Dr. Garzik specializes in understanding cultural differences in innovation ecosystems across regions. His work spans major innovation hubs including Shanghai, Cape Town, Vienna, San Francisco, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv, where he helps organizations design successful innovation strategies that bridge cultural and regional differences.
Julie Maigret Shapiro is the director of corporate relations at CITRIS and the Banatao Institute. Her mission is to build relationships and engagements between industry partners and CITRIS’s four-campus ecosystem (UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz) that foster impact and growth for all involved. Prior to CITRIS, Shapiro held positions in business development in higher education for more than 15 years. She worked at Berkeley Executive Education at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business for many years, where she designed and sold custom learning engagements for client partners across the globe..
Jill Finlayson is the Managing Director of the CITRIS Innovation Hub and former Director of the EDGE in Technology Initiative at the University of California. The Innovation Hub is home to innovation in the interest of society through our Workforce Innovation Program, Visiting Innovator Programs and CITRIS continuous learning opportunities. EDGE in Tech events include the EDGE in Technology Symposium and Athena Awards. The programs focus on research and initiatives to expand diversity and gender equity in tech.
Isabella Tomás is an Austrian career diplomat with 17 years in Foreign Service. After serving at the Austrian embassies in Belgrade, Madrid and Brasília, she came to San Francisco in August 2022 to become Austrian Consul and Co-Director of Open Austria. Isabella focuses on Tech- und Innovation-developments in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond; she is a member of the Tech Diplomacy Network Silicon Valley since its creation in February 2023. Trained in Romance languages & literature, Political Science and Journalism, she keeps in touch with the most relevant Science & Research institutions in the Bay Area, such as UC Berkeley and Stanford University, and the Austrian Startup- and scientific community both incoming from Austria as well as those based in the Bay Area.