I’m a postdoctoral researcher, educator, social entrepreneur, and consultant, focused on critical thinking for transitions at the intersection of technology and society.
Research
Currently, I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munich. In this role, I’m responsible for developing the research strategy of the newly established Chair of Design and Transdisciplinarity and for developing courses for a new Master’s programme. My research focuses on:
- Wicked problems and real-world societal challenges
- Humanity-centered innovation processes
- LLM/NLP-enabled transition design
- Translational design for knowledge valorization
- Developing human-AI co-creation methods to cultivate a reflective mindset
Previously, I was a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Technical University of Berlin, where I wrote my PhD thesis on Grassroots Innovation in Critical Technical Practice. My research focus was on:
- Responsible research and innovation
- Community-driven, grassroots and social innovation
- Open source hardware and software
- Critical maker culture
- Appropriate and appropriated technology
In this role, I developed the Critical Making course and taught classes on digital tools in the classroom, the future of technology, and prototyping technology for social good. I successfully acquired a 3-year grant from EU-SwafS Horizon 2020 to research Critical Making: RRI Principles in the Maker Community and from the Berlin University Alliance on Infrastructuring in Grassroots Innovation.
I am the Chair of the United Nations Working Group on Digital Public Infrastructure. Previously, I acted as Steering Committee Member at the Centre for Internet and Human Rights of the European University Viadrina, I served as Executive Director of the Global Innovation Gathering, a network of innovators in technology in the Global South, was an Advisory Board Member of the Horizon 2020-funded project CoAct (Co-designing Citizen Social Science for Collective Action) and a 36×36 Fellow, engaging in just transitions and designing new economies with femxle changemakers.
Social Entrepreneurship
I’m the Founder and Director of the Social-Digital Innovation Initiative, facilitating, promoting, and supporting the cross-pollination of the world of open source technology and social entrepreneurship and incubating financially sustainable social businesses. I have worked with 150+ startups worldwide and am looking forward to working with many more.
My approach to social entrepreneurship was shaped by my roles as the Founder and Manager of Ashoka Digital at Ashoka Germany, as coordinator of the Google Impact Challenge Germany accelerator program, and as Innovation Programs Manager at the International Telecommunication Union. Here, I founded the Young Innovators Program, the United Nations’ first co-creation and ideation platform supporting social entrepreneurs working with technology worldwide. In this role, I was also responsible for The Lab, an interactive learning space on art, technology and society in cooperation with Ars Electronica.
Consulting
As a freelancer I use my skills to advance development with the help of appropriate and digital technologies, build capacity, and advocate for cooperation, openness and inclusion.
In Europe, I supported CERN with #AttractYoung, a collaborative tech transfer hackathon, ran speculative workshops for multidisciplinary teams, and co-designed the Future University at Ars Electronica, using state-of-the-art technologies in transformation processes. I also supported entrepreneurial endeavours, reforming vocational training in Germany, and coached startups in online bootcamps, e.g. for the Journalismus Lab NRW and Media Lab Bayern on human-centred design, testing assumptions, and pitching.
I have been doing consultancies worldwide. I wrote a good practice report for the ITU to accelerate innovation ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa, and currently working on a report on Human-Centered Digital Transformation in Europe. I worked with the GIZ to scout and support socially oriented tech startups in West Africa, map the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Indonesia, and inform D4D projects throughout Asia. I developed a framework on scaling distributed manufacturing in the Global South with Manufacturing Change, the Frontier Technologies Hub, and the UK FCDO. Currently, I’m a mentor in UK AID’s Research and Innovation Systems for Africa project on Innovative Manufacturing in Africa and an Advisory Panel Member of the Open Infrastructure Fund.
Hobbies
My hobbies include rugby, upright bass, having a large pile of books I don’t have time to read, community radios, hardware hacking and languages: I speak Hungarian, English, German, Dutch, French and I’m learning Japanese.
Dr. Regina M. Sipos 