The 3rd GRADE Conference is set to take place in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 13–14, 2025. Hosted by the Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the event will focus on foregrounding the role of women and minorities in creative computing. It is also designed to advance the development of Open Educational Resources on the topic, and to provide a platform for all three GRADE Working Groups to reflect on the significance of this aspect of the history of creative computing to their work.
In addition to a keynote lecture, a GRADE progress report session and three Working-Group sessions, the conference in Belgrade will also highlight and unpack some of the complexities of creative computing histories in the region of South-East Europe. A spotlight round table will feature pioneering women in creative computing from the former socialist Yugoslavia, offering invaluable insights into their groundbreaking work.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore the region’s computing legacy through a guided tour of the Museum of Science and Technology’s exhibition on the history of computers. Furthermore, the conference will create opportunities to engage with vibrant local grassroots computing communities.
Click here to download the pratical information guide for visiting Belgrade.
belGRADE, 3rd GRADE Conference in Belgrade (March 13-14, 2025)
3rd GRADE Conference in Belgrade
Venue: Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Link for online participants:
https://zoom.us/j/99513665509?pwd=Zl7P4Qu13ZHM7kB0HlItKufG0HqlQ1.1
Meeting ID: 995 1366 5509
Passcode: 495653
Links for presenters to upload their presentations: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1WcPCHX38BGDMakVCPhs7YUSwo8sI2FyY
The 3rd GRADE Conference is set to take place in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 13–14, 2025. Hosted by the Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the event will focus on foregrounding the role of women and minorities in creative computing. It is also designed to advance the development of Open Educational Resources on the topic, and to provide a platform for all three GRADE Working Groups to reflect on the significance of this aspect of the history of creative computing to their work. In addition to a keynote lecture, a GRADE progress report session and three Working-Group sessions, the conference in Belgrade will also highlight and unpack some of the complexities of creative computing histories in the region of South-East Europe. A spotlight round table will feature pioneering women in creative computing from the former socialist Yugoslavia, offering invaluable insights into their groundbreaking work. Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore the region’s computing legacy through a guided tour of the Museum of Science and Technology’s exhibition on the history of computers. Furthermore, the conference will create opportunities to engage with vibrant local grassroots computing communities.
belGRADE Program
March 13
9:30-10:45: Introduction and COST Report Session
11:00-13:00: Women Pioneers in Computing in SEE: Round Table
The regional specificities and historical trajectories of computing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe are relatively under-researched; . This round table is designed to address this gap by spotlighting the work, stories and memories of women, who have contributed to regional computing innovations and cultures since the 1980s. The outlined perspective will illuminate the emergence and recent transformations of computer cultures in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav context, presenting a pallette of perspectives on computing as a creative process, scientific tool, vocation, and professional sphere. Chaired by COST GRADE Working Group 1 members Jasmina Šepetavc and Natalija Majsova, the round table will feature Meliha Handžić, Dunja Mladenić, Gordana Pavlović-Lažetić, and Biljana Stamatović.
Prof. Dr. Meliha Handžić is Professor Emeritus of Management and Information Systems at International Burch University, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She received her PhD in Information Systems from the University of New South Wales, Sydney where she was Inaugural Leader of the Knowledge Management Research Group. Handžić’s main teaching and research interests lie in the areas of knowledge management and decision support, with a particular focus on the processes and socio-technological enablers of knowledge creation, sharing, retention and discovery. She has published widely on these topics in books, journals and conference proceedings. Prior to joining academia, she was International Expert in Information Systems for the United Nations Development Programme in Asia and Africa. She also had a wide ranging industrial experience in Europe. She is COST GRADE Working Group 1 member.
Prof. Dr. Dunja Mladenić is leading the Department for Artificial Intelligence at Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS), Slovenia and teaching at Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, University of Ljubljana and University of Zagreb. She is a senior researcher and a project leader in Machine Learning, Data and Text Mining, Internet of Things, Data Science, Semantic Technologies developing techniques and their application on real-world problems. She spent a couple of years (1996/97, 2000/01) as a visiting researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. She served on the IJS’s Scientific Council (2013-2017), for the last three years as a vice president. She co-authored a number of scientific papers, co-edited several books, served on program committees of a number of international conferences and organized several international scientific events. She is a member of OECD Network of Experts on AI, has experience in coordinating EU projects and participated in more than 30 EU projects. She is the Slovenian representative in the EC Enwise STRATA ETAN Expert Group and serves as a project evaluator and reviewer for various EC programs including ERC panels and the USA NSF. She serves on Executive board of Slovenian Artificial Intelligence Society SLAIS for a number of years, as a president of SLAIS (2010-2014). She is on Advisory board of ACM Slovenija.
Prof. Dr. Gordana Pavlović-Lažetić was a Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade, Serbia. She has forty years of teaching experience at the University of Belgrade in different programming languages (ForTran, COBOL, Pascal, C, PHP, Python), and database courses (SQL, DB2, MySQL, database design and programming). She has aso taught courses and did research in bioinformatics and natural language processing. She spent two years as a researcher at the University of California, Berkley, and the Relational Technology Inc, as a consultant for extending the Relational Database System Ingres to manage text. From 1999 to 2020, she also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences.
Prof. Dr. Biljana Stamatović is a Professor at the Faculty of Information Technologies and Engineering, UNION Nikola Tesla University, Belgrade and Faculty of Philosophy, UCG, Montenegro. She has taught courses in mathematics and programming for more than 30 years and was a mentor for about 50 graduate, specialist, and master’s theses. She is the author of a large number of scientific works, the author of two books, a leader and member of a large number of projects, national coordinator in EWM (European Women in Mathematics (https://www.europeanwomeninmaths.org/)) and an ambassador in CWM (Committee for Women in Mathematics, IMU, https://www.mathunion.org/cwm).
13:00-14:30 Lunch Break
14:30-15:30 Women and Minorities in Creative Computing History:
Open Educational Resources Workshop
The Workshop will feature an introduction to OER development by GRADE Cost Action Chair Maria B. Garda and Lightning talks by Sandra Becker and Shana Marinitsch.
Maria B. Garda, COST GRADE action chair, will present an example of successful Open Educational Resources related to Creative Computing. The goal of the “Greening Games Building Higher Education Resources for Sustainable Video Game Production, Design & Critical Game Studies” (2021-2024)” project was to develop, test and distribute flagship didactic materials addressing the interdisciplinary nature of green digital gaming. These were tested in selected higher education programs in Germany, the Netherlands, Czechia and Finland.
Sandra Becker’s talk, “Digital Transformation, Minorities, and Wikimedia”, will focus on opportunities using digital transformation for creating spaces for minorities in grassroot organizations as the global Wikimedia Movement. Allthough programming was a female profession in the early years, we are now facing power structures that exclude women in the digital space.
See Wikimedia’s actual project on making women visible in the digfital space:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiproject/GLAM_Matrimoine
and the feminist network that she founded in 2020:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_FemNetz
Sandra Becker combines independent art strategies and digital transformation. She studied art and technology, worked as guest professor for artistic transformation in Berlin and for technical images in Porto Alegre, Brazil. She worked as app-developer for fairplayapp.de and as tech coach for Bosch. Now she is the GLAM Lead at Wikimedia CH (GLAM=Galleries, libraries, archives, museums).
Shana Marinitsch will speak about “How the Demoscene tries to Reckon and Learn from Itself”. The Demoscene is one of the oldest digital cultures apart of tinkerers in university labs, in Europe and worldwide. Naturally, the scene has also been a mirror of its times – from juvenile, sometimes outright misogynistic behaviour in the 1980s and 1990s, to an (at times awkward) balancing act between its meritocratic values and more diverse contributors demanding – and deserving! – their space in the 2000s, to the awakening of a new mindfulness in the wake of #metoo and the global liberation and social justice movements. And yet, we have a long way to go. Last year, Echtzeit presented an exhibition centering cis-female, trans* and non-binary demosceners, in which they tell their life-stories as well as highlight obstacles they encountered as gender minorities in high-tech communities.
Marinitsch will present a brief readout of the exhibition, important points raised by the artists, as well as new initiatives by some of the largest demoscene events to become more inclusive and accessible for everyone.
After pretty much growing up in German hackerspaces and LAN-parties in the 90s, Shana Marinitsch has been a demoscene organiser (Echtzeit, Breakpoint, Revision, MountainBytes, Meteoriks Awards) for more than 15 years. She works at Wikimedia Switzerland’s Innovation Programme.
15:45-16:45 WG2 Session
Privacy is a contested and multifaceted concept, approached differently across various disciplines in the broader fields of communication science, sociology, law, computer science, and many others. As evidenced by the vast amount of diverse literature, numerous policy documents, and legislation, privacy has emerged as one of the most pressing and polarizing issues in contemporary societies shaped by big-data analysis and algorithmic control. Recent advances in the capabilities of AI systems have further raised the issue of whether privacy measures can keep pace with accelerating technological developments. Dealing with the issue of privacy will be the focus of our White Paper.
After a brief general update on WG2 activities, we will focus on Grassroots initiatives in user privacy, the theme of the upcoming white paper. Ivo Furman and Jernej Kaluža have been working on the white paper and will introduce the key concepts and current status of the paper. This will be followed by a hands-on activity to collect information about privacy initiatives from countries represented in the network or familiar to the action members.
17:00-18:00 WG3 Session
Update on current activities, new collaborations, open issues.
18:15-19:15 Demoscene – No Borders, No Boundaries: Demoshow with Shana Marinitsch
The Demoscene is the first digital grassroots movement recognised as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage – ever since the 1980s, people create and share amazing artworks on a high-tech level that sometimes even astound the manufacturers of the hard- and software they tinker with.
So let’s watch some of these artworks together – with an emphasis on cross-country collaboration and development, as befits GRADE itself!
19:30 Dinner (self-paid): Snežana restaurant, Knez Mihajlova 50, https://www.snezana.rs/kontakt/
March 14
9:30-10:30 WG1 Session
Update on current activities (Kieran Nolan will report on the progress of the Histories and Cultures of Creative Computing in Europe (1970-2000): Silicon Dawn edited volume) and OER development clinic (task division, survey of materials).
10:45-13:00 Museum of Science and Technology Stakeholder Spotlight
The Museum Spotlight will involve a detailed presentation of their collections and funds, and a practical workshop on the intersection between digitization and sustainability, described below.
PRACTICAL WORKSHOP: ‘No. 1 Ecologist’ App
Deepen your understanding of ecology and discover the power of your actions in nature conservation! Let’s get inspired to make a difference!
Join us for an exciting, interactive workshop featuring the ‘No. 1 Ecologist’ app-a unique, student-created game that makes learning about ecology both fun and impactful! Developed by Gymnasium students in Smederevska Palanka under the guidance of their teacher, Sanja Rajić, this game challenges players to combat environmental threats caused by human negligence, such as pollution and waste. Accompanied by original music and engaging gameplay, it offers an immersive way to explore the importance of ecological responsibility.
What to Expect in the Workshop?
1. Play & Protect – Step into the role of an eco-hero! Collect litter, clean the environment, and battle the “enemies of nature” created by pollution. As you restore the landscape, flowers and trees will bloom, showing how small actions can lead to big environmental improvements. To progress through the game, you’ll also tackle fun, ecology-related challenges!
2. Test Your Knowledge – Prefer a different challenge? Take the eco-quiz and put your environmental knowledge to the test!
3. Create & Innovate – Want to take it a step further? Our expert moderators in game development and ecology will guide you through enhancing the game using the Unity engine-an exciting opportunity to combine environmental awareness with digital creativity!
More Than Just a Game!
Beyond the app, our workshop will also showcase the ‘Smart-Bin’-a digital solution for smarter waste management, designed to promote recycling and reduce environmental impact.
This workshop is a blend of education, entertainment, and innovation, offering you a chance to learn, play, and create while making a real difference for the planet. Don’t miss out-join us and be part of the movement for a greener future!
Workshop instructors: Sanja Rajić, Jovan Vujičić, Ivan Petrović
13:00-14:30 Lunch Break
14:30-15:30 East-West Exhibition Session
Throughout the years, digital media has traveled across borders in many different forms: on media carriers such as cartridges, floppy disks, CDs, hard drives, and later via communication media such as the internet. Sometimes games were even copied through radio broadcasts. The hybrid exhibition about East-West media transfers focuses on the variety of media forms and contents that have been involved in trans-border exchanges, and the cultural phenomena that enabled such exchanges. Enthusiasts and collectors congregating around the consumption of games, music, or film have created unique subcultures and communities, each reflecting the Zeitgeist of a specific historical era and location.The proposed narrative focuses on East-West media transfers and the local specificities of grassroot computing, underrepresented in mainstream media history. At the Belgrade event, we will present the concept of the exhibition and insights from the first stages of developing it. In addition to the issue of narrative, we will talk about the way the work is organised and the local resources that can be used.We will also offer a hands-on activity to advance our work on the concept and envision possible artefacts.
16:00-18:00 Digital Pioneers of Grassroots and Free Libre/Open-Source Software Movements in Serbia Round Table
This round table brings together participants to explore, through their recollections and insights, how technical expertise, volunteer-driven community building, and global networks shaped a distinctive local computing scene. The discussion will also highlight how personal motivations, creative passions, and collective activism converged in the early days of the internet, revealing the ways in which regional and global contexts have influenced each other. Drawing on diverse experiences, from early LinuxFEST conferences and open-source community efforts to reflections on the internet (r)evolution and grassroots internet activism, this conversation will offer a portrait of computing cultures in Serbia and the broader (post-)Yugoslav context. Chaired by COST GRADE Working Group 1 member Milica Knežević, the round table will feature Boško Radivojević, Danilo Šegan, Ivan Čukić, and Vesna Manojlović.
Boško Radivojević has been involved with Linux and Open Source since 1994. His first official job was as a System Administrator at RC ETF, managing Linux and SCO Unix servers, including a mission-critical Oracle-based ERP system. At the same time, he worked as a Tru64 UNIX instructor, delivering advanced training across Europe and the Middle East for enterprises like banks and insurance companies. In 2000, he co-founded the Open Source Network of Yugoslavia, the first non-profit in the country focused on promoting Open Source software and ideas, as well as supporting local Open Source projects. He also organised four LinuxFEST events in Belgrade (1999–2002), bringing together regional and international speakers and exhibitors. LinuxFEST was one of the first major conferences in Serbia dedicated to Linux and Open Source. Over the years, he has built and scaled multiple cloud and infrastructure companies. For the last six years, he has been living and working in London, focusing on cloud platforms, managed services, and early startups.
Danilo Šegan grew up in a household surrounded by computers, which led him to programming and later GNU/Linux after first getting online in 1995, not looking back since 1998 — computers were his creative outlet since elementary school! While studying Computer Science at Mathematical Faculty, University of Belgrade, he became active in internationalisation (i18n) and localisation (l10n) of GNU/Linux and GNOME to Serbian, including leading an effort to localise OpenOffice as well. His software engineering perspective helped get him to a global GNOME Translation Project spokesperson role, and this ultimately landed him a job inside Canonical’s Launchpad.net team, where he helped build i18n platform for Ubuntu, and worked on a number of different free software and proprietary projects. After more than 11 years at Canonical with a short excursion to Linaro (Linux-on-ARM) to lead the infrastructure team, he has worked on projects like Hotjar (user behaviour analysis) or EnergySage (energy-efficiency marketplace focused on solar power) as a Software Engineering leader at Schneider-Electric Serbia. He was one of the recipients of the 2006 City of Belgrade Award for Youth Creativity for the project of localisation of GNOME desktop environment.
Ivan Čukić is one of the key members of the New Wave of Yugoslavian Free Software advocates that were active in the early two-thousands on Balkans. Locally, via various projects of the Free Software Network and later at the University of Belgrade. He is a member of KDE – one of the largest and oldest Free Software projects where he
maintains several KDE products which are used all around the world, from
the likes of CERN and NASA, to popular movie studios. Outside of the Free Software and Open Source movements, he is a member of the C++ Committee and author of “Functional programming in C++” book.
Vesna Manojlović is Community Builder at RIPE NCC. Vesna joined the RIPE NCC as a Trainer in 1999. In 2003, she took responsibility for developing and delivering advanced courses, such as RPSL, Routing Registry, DNSSEC and IPv6. In 2008, she lead efforts to establish IPv6 RIPEness as a measure of IPv6 deployment among LIRs. In 2011, she joined the Science Division as Manager of the Measurements Community Building team; in 2015 she moved to Communications Department as Senior Community Builder, with a focus on organising hackathons. Vesna gives presentations at many technical conferences and workshops, and enjoys visiting hackerspaces. Vesna received a Batchelor of Sciences Degree in Computer Science and Informatics from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade.
18:15-19:15 Closing Session