Looking Back at the 'Digitale Week' and the FTI Festival
Over the past few weeks, Scivil and amai! have been bringing citizen science to a wide audience. During the Digitale Week, from 6 to 16 October, citizens had the opportunity to discover seven Flemish AI projects and share their thoughts on the future of AI. Another highlight this autumn was the Flanders Technology & Innovation Festival (FTI). From 20 October to 7 November, the Nekkerhal in Mechelen was all about technology and innovation. Among all that innovation, we were happy to spot plenty of citizen science!
amai! during the 'Digitale Week'
During the Digitale Week, the amai! team engaged with people across Flanders about the future of AI. Citizens shared their opinions, ideas and concerns about seven Flemish AI innovations (in Dutch) and reflected on the role artificial intelligence could play in the future. They did so through digital kiosks and workshops held in libraries across Flanders. Together, these activities generated hundreds of responses and conversations.
Spotting citizen science at Flanders NEXT
From 20 October to 7 November, Flanders NEXT took over the Nekkerhal with more than 500 stories and installations showing how innovation can help shape the future of Flanders.
We took a look around to see how much citizen science we could find. Among the projects on display were:
- Scivil’s quiz ‘Which Citizen Scientist are you’ and our video explaining what citizen science is.
- Maarallee (in Dutch), a project inviting Flemish speakers to record their accent or dialect and help AI better understand Flemish.
- ObsIdentify, an app with which people can identify animals and plants
- Radio Meteor Zoo, a Zooniverse project in which citizen scientists help find meteors in radio observations.
- AstroSounds, where volunteers listen to and classify sounds from space data.
- Several citizen science projects supported by amai! (in Dutch), including CAIRE, an AI chatbot for cancer survivors; CamerAI, using smart cameras to spot nocturnal animals; ExplainMed, making medical language easier to understand; and bAIcycle, where cyclists gather information about cycling comfort and the condition of bike paths.
Take a look through the photo carousel.
amai! at Expeditie NEXT
After Digitale Week, amai! also brought the seven AI innovations to Expeditie NEXT, FTI’s two-day innovation festival on 24 and 25 October. There, visitors could engage directly with the creators of the innovations and the amai! team during small-scale, interactive workshops. They shared their questions, concerns and expectations, providing further valuable input on the future of these applications.
The input collected during Digitale Week and at FTI is being analysed and will soon be shared on amai!’s website and social media channels (in Dutch). Curious about the seven innovations? You can still explore them online and share your own opinion here (in Dutch).
