IV STS Italia Summer School Report
IV STS Italia Summer School Report
The IV STS Italy Summer School was hosted in Catania from September 5th to 9th, 2017. The School, titled “Almost Humans: Robotics, Healthcare and STS”, has been organized in collaboration with the Department of Political and Social Sciences, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, the Department of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computing of the University of Catania, and with the support of Neodata, a company operating in the online publishing sector.
The School received 18 applications and selected 13 participants, 3 of which have been awarded a scholarship. The majority of these participants were young researchers or PhD students, while two were museum curators. The group was markedly international, with only two Italians. Other participants came from Bulgaria (2), Germany (2), Austria (1), Belgium (1), Croatia (1), France (1), Mexico (1), Spain (1) and Sweden (1). It should also be emphasized the gender composition, as amongst the 13 students 8 were women.
The Summer School involved presenters from several research fields. For this reason, the program was markedly interdisciplinary and intellectually dense, encouraging intense exchanges among participants. As result, robotics has been analysed from different points of view and perspectives.
Feedback from participants, teachers and students was very positive, both in terms of the scientific outcome and interpersonal climate. This was made possible also thanks to the various initiatives proposed, including a visit to the Robotics Lab of the University of Catania and other social events (Taormina, Volcano Etna, etc.)
The Summer School gained interest within the academic community in Catania and received good media coverage too. The activities were followed by the University’s web-tv and will be on-line shortly. Moreover, the newspaper “La Sicilia” announced the School and published a long article (online available) in the section “Innovation and Hi-tech”.
Overall, the 2017 Summer School has charted and strengthened the path already opened by previous summer schools organized by STS Italia.
**NEW**: The video recordings of Summer School’s presentations
Photographic Report of the Summer School
