ICT Open 2025 the annual Dutch Research Council (NWO) ICT conference in the Netherlands, took place on 15 & 16 April 2025 at the Beatrix Theater, Jaarbeurs Utrecht. ICT.OPEN unites ICT researchers and professionals from various ICT disciplines to collaborate, exchange ideas, and build connections.
HCI for Social Impact
For the second year in a row the CHI NL community had great impact at ICT.OPEN hosting the Human-Computer Interaction and Societal Impact in the Netherlands track in line with the conference theme ‘Building digital bridges‘. The track was made possible by CHI NL together with the broader HCI community that enthusiastically contributed to the tracks’s organization. Track chairs were Max Birk (TU/e) and Armağan Karahanoğlu (UT), while Nazlı Cila (TUD), Marit Bentvelzen (UU), Roel Vertegaal (RU), Steven Houben (TU/e) served as track committee members.
This year the track received 33 submissions showing that HCI is not just a frontier research field but also has significant societal impact. We ended up with 9 presentations, 16 posters, and four fantastic demos.
Illustrating the importance and potential impact of HCI research the ICT.OPEN Poster Award was won by Irina Bianca Serban for her poster on Less Supervising, More Caring: Design Recommendations for Informal Caregivers’ Co-Participation in Cardiac Telerehabilitation. Besides, in this track Nick van Apeldoorn won the ICT.OPEN Demo Award for their work on Virtual Humans for European Societal Prosperity (VESPER).
Bridging the Gap between Research and Industry
Additionally, members of the CHI NL community participated in other tracks such as the Bridging the Gap between Research and Industry through Application-Oriented AI Innovations track which was chaired by Faizan Ahmed (Saxion), Gido Hakvoort (Windesheim), Deepak Tunuguntla (Saxion).
We are looking forward to continuing CHI NL’s presence at ICT.OPEN 2026 in Rotterdam!
More impressions:
