27 Jul Prof Calzada directed and led Digital Inclusion & GenAI International Summer School in Donostia on 15-16 July 2025

Prof Calzada directed the international UIK 2025 Summer School titled ‘Digital Inclusion & Generative Artificial Intelligence,’ held on July 15–16 at the Miramar Palace in Donostia/San Sebastián. The event was organized in collaboration with the Presidency Department of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa.

📍Gipuzkoa as a Territorial Lab for Digital Sustainability and Social Cohesion

The Summer School explored Gipuzkoa’s emerging role as a territorial laboratory for inclusive digital innovation. Building on its longstanding community tradition of auzolan (collective work), the region is developing a socially cohesive and digitally sustainable model. Participants examined how responsible digital technologies—particularly ethical and inclusive applications of Generative AI—are being integrated into local policies and infrastructures.

✅ Public sector initiatives in areas such as sustainable mobility, AI-powered chatbots, digital certification, broadband access, and rural digitalization served as case studies illustrating a coordinated governance approach that seeks to merge social cohesion, digital rights, and environmental sustainability.

Rather than treating issues such as the digital divide, data divide, and algorithmic bias merely as technical problems, the discussions framed them as complex societal challenges—and opportunities—for participatory governance and inclusive innovation. The conversation critically addressed the hype surrounding GenAI and emphasized the institutional and social conditions required to deploy it ethically and equitably.

⚠️ Despite these advances, participants identified key challenges ahead: bridging digital divides affecting older populations, migrant communities, and rural areas; and ensuring that AI adoption in public services remains rights-based, inclusive, and democratically accountable.

Gipuzkoa was presented as a potential living lab for decentralized digital governance, with relevance far beyond its territorial boundaries. Yet the need for further deployment, interdepartmental coordination, municipal engagement, and experimental policymaking was highlighted as essential to scale these efforts and to articulate both mainstream and alternative digital futures.

🙏 Special thanks to all the speakers, civil society organizations, and participants for contributing to this iterative process of action research, policy reflection, and open dialogue.

📖 Registration:
https://www.uik.eus/en/activity/digital-inclusion-generative-artificial-intelligence-gipuzkoa-socially-cohesive-digitally
📄 Programme:
https://www.uik.eus/sites/default/files/programa/2583-en-dipu25-dh-cv-programa-2.pdf

🔗 Also featured via Data for Policy CIC on Open Science/Open Access: https://lnkd.in/dAyc36-y

To be continued…

#DigitalInclusion #GenerativeAI #SocialCohesion #DigitalSustainability #Auzolan #UIK2025 #TerritorialInnovation #OpenScience #OpenAccess #ActionResearch #DecentralizedGovernance