Author: Kimberly Wright, Postgraduate LLM student Global Legal Studies
Kimberly Wright
One of the main reasons I decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Global Legal Studies after completing my Bachelor’s in Law was to obtain a better understanding of the global legal system in the hopes of one day working for an international organization, as well as to apply for a placement to gain practical experience in a reputable organization. From February to May of this year, I had the privilege of interning with Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute.
My first day with the ALL Institute I was incredibly nervous as I had no previous experience working in this field and it was completely different from what I was accustomed to. However, upon meeting the co-directors and their administrative lead for the first time, I was warmly welcomed and immediately put at ease.
Authors: Negin M Harandi– PhD student, Department of Sociology, Maynooth University. Funded by ADVANCE CRT (SFI), Fatima Ayoub – PhD student, Department of Electronic Engineering, Maynooth University. Funded by ADVANCE CRT (SFI)
Pictured Mylo Robot – CR Robotics/Mylo
Can robots be social? Can we start to think of them as our co-workers, companions, teachers, or caregivers? Would they make our lives easier or is there a robot-dominated dystopian future already awaiting us? These are some of the questions that might pop into anyone’s head when hearing about social robots. Thinking about how AI could be more social is always interesting. We are an extremely social species and often like to imagine what happens when something other than a human is able to act like a human.
On 19 April 2021, the ALL institute hosted a seminar on “Social robots: the ultimate test for AI and robotics”. Professor Tony Belpaeme (Ghent University) introduced by Dr Rudi Villing (Maynooth University), took us through a few experiments with social robots in different social settings and we got the chance to see how social robots were performing as teaching assistants, therapy assistants and caregivers.
This was especially interesting to us as our PhD projects are about robots. Although we have different ways of studying and looking at social robots as a sociology student and an electronic engineering student, being able to see some of the shortcomings and challenges of using social robots in real social environments was fascinating for both of us.
Author: Ana Geppert, Masters student of Global Health at VU Amsterdam, intern with the ALL Institute at Maynooth University, in partnership with Loughborough University.
Social Lives
Ana Geppert
Sport can be a powerful tool contributing to community development. Engagement in Sports has the ability to unify people from the most diverse backgrounds, as well as strengthen the relationship we have with ourselves. In many ways, the practice of engaging in Sport (in the broadest sense of the concept) is like accessing a gateway to so many different levels of society. From our closest surrounding context (micro level) to the highest structures of society (macro level). It can help accessing community services and assistive technologies, which are all crucial to community development. In my discussion today, I am speaking about Sport broadly – not elite-level performance, but rather the every-day sports practices many of us engage in. Encompassing everything from physical activity, to exercise but also recreational play.
Author: Marco Lombardi, Department of Social Educational Care Work and Researcher at Equality Research Collective, Hogent University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Ghent, Belgium.
Social Lives
Marco Lombardi
Since its establishment in 2007, World Autism Awareness Day has grown up. It began as a celebrative day to facilitate acknowledgment of persons with Autism and the recognitions of supports enable participation in society. A few years have passed and the awareness of persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has increased. The improvement has brought greater visibility, respect and access to treatments. Guidelines have been developed worldwide and more personalized supports have been tailored and delivered for pupils and teenagers. As the awareness grow up, persons with ASD have grown too. This growing awareness has revealed different barriers to the participation to society, especially for adults, that have not been considered at earlier ages.
Author: Jamie Howell; PhD researcher, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University
BioMed Central-
In recent years, health researchers have begun to embrace the concept of patient and public involvement (PPI). Rather than conducting research on or for various populations, we have begun to move towards working with patients and the public by prioritizing their needs and concerns. This allows researchers to learn from those who have lived experience and can help them design research projects which are more beneficial to the population being researched.
I first heard of PPI during my MSc, when my supervisor, Dr Rebecca Maguire encouraged me to include aspects of PPI in my research. Dr Maguire has worked as both a researcher and as a patient advocate, and her expertise has been invaluable to my own research.
Author: Mohamed Maalim – PhD Researcher, of the ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University
The Zero Discrimination day is celebrated annually on the 1st day of March, to reflect on our rich human diversity and the need for equal opportunity to enjoy fundamental human rights, and to fight against discrimination in all its forms and manifestations. This year, above all previous, the ongoing global COVID-19 Pandemic with all its disruptive nature and the misfortune it has brought and caused, has also offered humanity a glimpse of its ‘non-discrimination’ attribute. The advent of COVID-19 reinforced upon us that we are all equal as humans in our susceptibility, our fear and concern for self and others, and indeed in our hope of getting back to as ‘normal life’ as possible or whatever that ‘normal’ means.
Additionally, with Covid-19, we have adopted a common enemy enforcing upon us an almost military-type operation to fight back. The nations of the world in an unprecedented fashion formed ‘NATO’ type alliances and collaborative networks with the ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Big Pharma’ in a concerted effort to develop digital contact tracing and tracking apps‘ and vaccines, respectively. Individual governments assumed the role of commanding officers alongside senior health personnel, frontline healthcare workers, and other so called ‘essential’ workers as the foot soldiers of the operation, while the general public’s hearts and minds were won by calls to stay at home to suppress the virus.
Authors: Dr Noelle Higgins is an Associate Professor in Law at Maynooth University and Dr Dorothy Ní Uigín is Riarthóir Theagasc na Gaeilge in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge at NUI Galway
The 21st of February is International Mother Language Day, with the theme of this year’s celebration being ‘Fostering multilingualism for inclusion in education and society’. This celebration of languages was established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999, and has been celebrated every year globally since 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Its establishment has since been heralded by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, which, in Resolution 56/262 of 2002, welcomed UNESCO’s initiative, and called ‘upon Member States and the Secretariat to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.’ This year’s theme emphasises the role of language as a means of societal inclusion and underlines the importance of education in one’s Mother Tongue.
On the 20th of February, the United Nations World Day of Social Justice gives the world an opportunity to celebrate peace, social inclusion, and respect for human rights. Those values are at the core of the United Nations (UN) action, and, in particular, of the Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. The UN SDGs consist of a total of 17 universal goals adopted by all 193 UN member states aimed at improving and ensuring a sustainable future for all. These goals include poverty, inequality, climate change, peace and justice among various other causes for concern. The Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute’s mission is to ensure that all people around the world, particularly those who have been subject to marginalisation, achieve a good quality of life and full participation in society through the use of appropriate technologies and evidence-based policies and laws. Our research is dedicated to promoting human rights-based and person-centred systems to empower people and enhance social inclusion and involvement.
Author: Kathleen Cunningham, Undergraduate Arts Student at Maynooth University
I am a first year Undergraduate Arts Student at Maynooth University, studying English, Sociology, Psychology and Law.
Last year I completed the Turn to Teaching programme at Maynooth, on the Foundation Certificate in the Initial Teacher Education course. During this programme, I learned that my own lived experience in education gives me a beneficial skillset and great insight that I can bring back to a career in the field of education. On the Turn to Teaching (TTT) programme we also learned about key concepts affecting teaching in Ireland today. We learned ways in which the school experience can be improved for students of all backgrounds, especially for students coming from backgrounds similar to my own – from DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) designated schools, from the flats, from council estates.
Authors: Joseph Timoney, Azeema Yaseen and Damien McEvoy – , Department of Computer Science, Maynooth University
Azeema Yaseen, Damien McEvoy & Joseph Timoney
Social technologies enable meaningful social interactions between people, devoid of geographical and time constraints. These technologies are facilitated by a networked communication capability, for example the Internet or a mobile device. We can say, they act as a bridge between humans, no matter how remote they are from each other. Do you know that Facebook, Twitter, and Skype are social technology enabled social networks? If you have an internet connection, they are accessible. Some of these tools are general purpose, while others are domain specific, such as those targeted for health (e.g., wearables and mobile Health), or music (e.g., SoundCloud, Spotify). The three branches of social technologies are illustrated in Figure 1. below.
Figure 1
The development and application of social technologies will promote aims driven by the All institute; The ALL institute aims to facilitate human living and improve the quality of lives across any boundaries, supported by appropriate technologies. To achieve this, the All Institute provides an unparalleled interdisciplinary environment to develop and promote such technologies.
Aligning with this aim, our research interest is the intersection between the two in the form of social technologies for healthcare (patient-practitioners) through musical activities. The theme of our work is ‘Ubiquitous music (ubimus)’ and has a strong social and community underpinning. Our objective is to create social music technology applications: they facilitate networked interaction and engagement that would otherwise be impossible. This will allow inter-connections between people to raises their sense of wellbeing through creative activity, which is increasingly recognised as being important to all aspects of peoples’ health.
