Designing Collective Empowerment to Support Bottom-Up City-Making
Ben A. M. Schouten
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Ben Schouten is an artist, designer, and emeritus professor at Eindhoven University of Technology and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He founded the master’s in digital design in Amsterdam and until 2020 worked as its scientific director. His research focuses on play and design for social innovations, citizen empowerment, and culture. Ben Schouten develops games within the domain of health care, education, and urban planning, focusing on playful empowerment, and (co-)authored seven books and 100-plus publications at the intersection of play, games, participatory design, and citizen empowerment.
Gwen Klerks
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands / University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
Gwen Klerks is a doctoral researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology and University of Technology Sydney. Gwen’s research focusses on addressing complex socio-technical problems in local contexts in close collaboration with communities and other relevant stakeholders. She applies design thinking to empower stakeholders to share their perspectives, develop shared meaning, and participate in collective action in context. As such, Gwen supports collaboration in heterogenous groups to realize local positive change. Her PhD research focusses on the dynamics and complex design processes and the role of designers in community initiatives in urban contexts.
Silvia Cazacu-Bucica
KU Leuven, Belgium
Silvia Cazacu is a PhD researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on tools and approaches that support critical data literacy. For example, Silvia employs data physicalization to enhance criticality in the interactions between actors within data ecosystems.