Diversity Week 2022 - The programme

Saxion University of Applied Sciences, University of Twente and ROC van Twente are committed to ensuring an inclusive, accessible and engaging educational environment for all. 

This event is around equal opportunities, prevention of all forms of discrimination, and equity in education and on the Dutch labour market is being organised. As educational institutions, what can be done to ensure equitable and fair opportunities for all? And how can we, working together with businesses, lecturers and career counsellors ensure matching, safe and inspiring internships and a smooth transition into the labour market?

Are you joining us? Please share your experiences, best practices and views during this inspiring discussion and interactive session (including lunch).

Television and radio presenter, programme maker and lecturer Karim Amghar will join us - as a community - for an interactive discussion about the importance of education in creating equal opportunities.

What are the effects of biases, radicalisation, polarisation, and wokeness at our university and in our society? And how can we better understand these effects and work together to continue cultivating an inclusive and safe community. Do you want to be there and participate in this inspiring conversation in person or online? Please sign up! 

Tackling diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic teams and technological development is not a matter of easy fixes. But, most of us feel there are no tangible actions to take beyond discussion. Are there ways to turn the tide and put technology at the service of social justice? Yes!  

This workshop features tools developed during the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Embodied AI initiative (DEI4EAI) initiated and executed by a group of professors and students of the four technical universities in the Netherlands. During this workshop, you get hands-on experience with tools and techniques that you can use in your daily academic work, in your project, and in tackling societal challenges. The tools inspired by the Responsible Futuring approach of the DesignLab and speculative design are meant to make reflections and awareness tangible, a material for design decisions. Plus, you will receive a free digital "Social Justice 4 Embodied AI" syllabus that you can use in you education or just to learn more about the topic and methods. 

Excited and really keen to participate? Please take a look at the programme below and don't forget to register!

Just walk by and talk to us about whatever thoughts you might have on diversity, equity and inclusion at UT. Where do you think we are doing well and where do you think we could do better? Grab a free cup of coffee or tea. And you can also learn more about the free period products we now offer - as a pilot - in various bathrooms on campus. We are curious to hear what you think about that!

An honest discussion around challenges faced during data gathering activities and getting all the right voices heard in a community. Once realised, how do we deal with that, and how can we work on cultivating and collecting just data from a community? 

Fenna will present her experiences in the creation of a participatory urban dashboard in Lima, Peru, based on the principles of data justice. Afterwards, we will turn our gaze a bit closer to the current UT dashboard(s) and collectively think about representation, visibility and anonymity in our data practices.  

Vation on studying with a disability? You may wonder what has happened since then and how this combines with discussions around accessibility (phical/digital) for all students and staff at UT. Come join us for a motivating and honest discussion around challenges faced and what is effectively being done within UT’s structures to change these challenges for the better.

Please register! Walk-in starts at 16.30. Stories - by Ray Klumpert (Campus & Facility Management) and Assistant Professor Yj Erden among others - will be shared as of 17.00. Do you want to join online? Please do!

For the Rainbow Days Enschede, Th!nk with Pride UT and Th!nk with Pride Saxion are joining forces to organise a symposium centred around LGBTQ+ inclusion at their institutions and beyond. This is a topic that spans the full width of our universities: from making our education inclusive, to making an impact via inclusive policy, to conducting research to underpin these undertakings. Beyond that, the symposium will also give space for personal stories to be told, as these experiences can inspire us all.

Programme overview

Location: Canteen Saxion, M.H. Tromplaan 28

11:00     Doors open
11:30     Opening by Chairman of the day, Tom Boogerd (he/him)
11:45     SOGIGE (research), Tessa Dekkers (she/they)
12:15     The road towards an inclusive study environment, Juliana Peerboom (she/her)
12:45     Lunch
13:45     Inclusive use of language, Linda Pasqual (she/her) & Aurelius Ambachtsheer (they/them)
14:30     Master theses by Anders Stefanovska (he/him): "Who cares?: Social media, epistemic oppression, and denial in the cisheteropatriarchy” and by Updita Boro (he/him): “LGBTQI+ Migrants in a Datafied City: A Qualitative Study on the Use of (Geo)Data in Amsterdam”
15:15     Break
15:30     Stories of inspiration
16:00     Queer History, Anna Schupiloff (they/them)
16:30     Pridemars to Stonewall
17:00     Speech alderman of the city of Enschede, Arjan Kampman (he/him)
17:30     Performance of an upcoming artist, Maeve (they/them)

Drinks and some small bites

19:00  Closing ceremony Th!nk with Pride University of Twente and Th!nk with Pride Saxion

Last year UT wrote and published our Gender Equality Plan as part of the Horizon Europe requirement for funding of gender (binary) inclusive research proposals. But what exactly does this entail and how does it affect our researchers, students and further UT community? Join us for this round table discussion whereby we gain a deeper understanding of what the GEP actually is, why it is important and best practices to make research proposals more diverse, equitable and inclusive from the moment a research idea is born. Curious to learn more? Join us for this lunch session and get inspired!

This event presents an open access booklet from the 4TU Diversity for Embodied AI initiative and discuss with experts in the fields, students, and civic society about shaping just futures for AI.

We believe that assessing, critiquing, and changing our practices is what academics and society need to design the technologies of the future we want to live in. However, reflecting and re-imagining just futures for embodied AI is only one small step to challenging the current status quo in embodied AI.

This book, then, calls for more initiatives to inspire systemic change toward a more just, equitable, and inclusive future in AI at Utwente, in the 4TUs, and beyond. No matter if you are a student, a professor, or an activist. If you are working in the field of AI or smart technology and striving to design for social justice, this is the event for you. In the event, we will give space to map initiatives working on similar topics to explore future collaborations. 

Let the motivational words of Tanya Bondarouk, Dean of the Faculty of BMS, inspire you. Let's look back on the week together and look ahead to what we all can do to continue working on diversity, equity and inclusion!