Intimate Computing

Towards a caring and inspiring Digital Society

Welcome to Dr. M. Birna van Riemsdijk’s website! Intimate Computing is about digital technologies that in some sense “come close” to us in our daily lives. Examples are quantified self, mobile location sharing apps, social media, wearables and high-tech clothing, as well as behaviour support technology such as smart homes.

I posit that the intimate nature of these technologies makes us vulnerable in specific ways. In line with this idea, I put forward a vision of intimate computing as computing with vulnerability. This means that intimate technologies should take into account human vulnerabilities, allowing people to reflect on and actively shape their vulnerable existence in interaction with these technologies. In this way, we create a caring and inspiring digital society that embraces softness and vulnerability, allowing us to feel wonder and tenderness in our intimate technological experiences.

Do you want to know more? Then take a look at the research page or read more about me!

I wish you an inspiring site visit,
Birna van Riemsdijk
Associate professor Intimate Computing, University of Twente


Latest News

October 25, 2023

Infographic Value-aware personal agents!

My NWO Vidi project CoreSAEP on software that takes into account personal norms and values has been concluded in 2022....
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Logo of CoreSAEP project, featuring a house with a WiFi sign as 'smoke' out of the chimney and people standing in front of it.
November 24, 2022

Symposium ‘Being human in the digital society’

On November 21st 2022 Dr. Birna van Riemsdijk (UT) and Dr. Myrthe Tielman (TUD) organized the symposium ‘Being human in...
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April 28, 2022

Postdoc position on Designing Intimate Technologies through Dance

I have an awesome postdoc opportunity available in my team: I'm looking for a creative postdoc to investigate the interwovenness...
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April 3, 2022

2020 Best Paper Award IEEE Computer

Our paper about the Hybrid Intelligence project, 'A Research Agenda for Hybrid Intelligence: Augmenting Human Intellect With Collaborative, Adaptive, Responsible,...
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December 29, 2021

PhD position on Non-Monotonic Reasoning for Personal Agents

I have a fully-funded 4-year PhD position available to investigate the application of non-monotonic reasoning techniques for user modelling in...
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December 29, 2021

New preprints on Social Situation Awareness!

We have two new preprints on Social Situation Awareness (SSA) available on arXiv with PhD candidate Ilir Kola as first...
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May 14, 2021

U-Today interview about underfunding of academia

On the occasion of the National Alarmday on April 6th 2021 to draw attention to structural underfunding of Dutch academia,...
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May 14, 2021

OneWorld interview: Big Questions in AI

I was interviewed by OneWorld magazine about the big questions and challenges for a society in which AI is omnipresent...
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December 30, 2020

New publications on Social Situation Awareness!

Two new publications on Social Situation Awareness of Personal Assistant Agents have been accepted in the past months (Ilir Kola...
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September 23, 2020

BNR radio interview on Intimate Computing

In summer I was interviewed by BNR radio about my research on Intimate Computing for the item "Wetenschap Vandaag" (Science...
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