Category: TUWien

I’m a university assistant at the Vienna UT with a background in computer science. I’m interested in the fields of game design, e-learning and share-communities.

I’m especially interested in the inter-generational aspect of the Give & Take project, as well as providing means for an international audience. I see another intriguing aspect in the involvement of small businesses and in avoiding to take away work of other local service institutions.

In the first phase of the project, I will largely be involved in literature review and reading up on similar projects in the area. Later on, I will also be involved in the design process, as well as creating digital prototypes. As a PhD student, I’m also interested in basing my own research in the area, and reporting my findings back to the project.

I am a Professor of Design and Assessment of Technology in the Informatics Faculty at TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology). I have an eclectic background starting in Australia (dropping out of social work, training as a nurse and midwife, co-setting up the first private midwifery practice in Queensland, studying for an informatics degree, completing a PhD at the intersection of computer science and the social sciences, working in a distributed systems research organization) then moving to Europe to work as a user experience consultant in industry in London, and then as an academic in England and now Austria.

I am passionate about re-thinking the design of technology to enhance quality of life, in particular for this project, the experience of aging and community, connecting to people’s core values and to what makes life fun and rewarding. Other research areas include health and well being, social and emotional skills learning, and collaboration and social interaction.  

I facilitate the great team of researchers at TUW, responsible for WP2 on the service design model and facilitating the partner engagements in Austria.

Katharina has studied Media Informatics at Vienna University of Technology. Before returning to the University as a project assistant she was responsible for user involvement and conducting and planning user trials at the Institute of Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Technologies (CEIT RALTEC).Her expertises are within the areas of user experience, participatory design methods, human computer and human robot interaction especially in the field of AAL.

At the end of the project she is hoping to see people who are proud of having managed the hurdle to use “technical devices of the young generation” and new relationships evolve between people who did not have a lot of social contact.

Within the Give&Take project Katharina is involved in planning and conducting of workshops, focus groups, interviews and trials with potential endusers of the Give&Take service.
Furthermore she will work on establishing a Living Lab in Austria and accompany the participating seniors and representatives of senior organisations throughout the whole project.

Katharina loves to share travel experiences.

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My  role in Give&Take is shaped by my personal interests into topics like collective life‐styles, local cultures, grassroots movements, sustainable living, as well as inspiring details of everyday culture, co-creation and open design processes and all these in relation with design culture of aging.  As a senior researcher (Vienna University of Technology) and with a background in design and d- anthropology,  I am responsible for coordination of research in Austria both for co-design and civic engagement parts. The core interests are on exploring future perspectives of share economy practices for an aging society with the help of creative, hands-on experiments, co-creation and open design processes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]