During the CGI’18 conference, University of Geneva organised a special session that took place on the 11th of June 2018 in Bintan, Indonesia. This session was chaired by the PhD candidates Evangelia Baka, from University of Geneva and Maria Christofi, from GET Lab of Cyprus University of Technology.
During this session, three presentations were carried out as well as a final discussion between the chairs and the participants. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann spoke about social robots and their application and she specifically presented Nadine social robot. Nadine is a female humanoid robot that is modelled on Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, has a strong human-likeness with a natural-looking skin and hair and realistic hands. It is a socially intelligent robot that can assist people with special needs, play the role of a receptionist in an office or be dedicated to be a personal coach.
Maria Christofi presented the Network for Social Computing Research (NOTRE) project and its objectives and the work of the Social Computing Research Centre (SCRC). Additionally, she talked about Virtual Reality and Empathy. The talk included definitions of stereotypes, prejudice and how through perspective talking we can induce empathy into people in a virtual environment.