Events

Social Networks - from science to technology
Dissemination meeting - 9th September 2010

ICTeCollective of BECS, Aalto University together with Nokia Research Centre warmly welcomes you to join this symposium bringing high profile academic and industry experts together to discuss the latest insights in research and innovation on social networking.

Robin Dunbar, University of Oxford
"How many friends does one person need?"

Kari Leppänen, Nokia Research Centre
"Gossiping machines"

János Kertész, Budapest University of Technology
"I call you, you call her...How rumors spread"

Mikko Sams, Aalto University
"Studying human brain in natural conditions"

Andrzej Nowak, University of Warsaw
"Social dynamics of mobile communication: preliminary"

Public Meeting Showcasing Initial ICTeCollective Findings
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
15th March 2010, 2:00 - 5:00pm

How dependent have we become on modern technologies like mobile phones, and are social networking sites significantly changing the nature of our relationships with other people? This €2.5 million project brings together an international team of experts to answer these questions. Drawn from disciplines including psychology, computer science and physics, the projects aims to chart large-scale patterns and trends in human behaviour. Using modelling tools, the team is examining the impact of online social networking at individual, group and societal levels to discover whether our digital social life enhances, replaces or threatens face-to-face relationships.

The event has been chaired by Felix Reed-Tsochas, Director of Complex Systems Research at InSIS and Co-Director of the CABDyN Complexity Centre. The speakers were international experts in complex systems:

Jukka Pekka Onnela, Harvard University Medical School (US) and Associate Fellow in Complex Systems, InSIS and CABDyN Complexity Centre
“The spontaneous emergence of social influence in online systems” (slides to follow, video, audio only)

Robin Dunbar, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford
“Phoning home: keeping in touch in social networks” (slides, video, audio only)

Jari Saramäki, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
“Local correlations of mobile phone calls” (slides, video, audio only)

Santo Fortunato, Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Torino, Italy
“Popularity dynamics in Wikipedia” (slides, video, audio only)