Heike Brock, Thomas Weisswange, Serge Thill, Malte Jung, Aaron Horowitz, "Exploring the Roles of Robots for Embodied Mediation A Full-Day Workshop for ICRA 2022", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2022), 2022.

As technology increasingly permeates our lives and demands more and more attention, it alters the very foundation of how we form and maintain our relationships with others. For example, robots and other embodied agents may attract social attention away from others as they are often particularly compelling to interact with. To envision technology that connects us, and enriches rather than disrupts our social lives, this workshop aims to develop the concept of embodied mediation – agents and devices that serve as a catalysts for social connection across genders, cultures and age groups. The workshop comprises of two distinct but closely interconnected parts to achieve maximum output and engagement for all participants. An informative part provides participants with relevant knowledge through keynote presentations on state- of-the-art in embodied mediation and interactive presentation from contributors. This is complemented by a creative design thinking part that is facilitated by experts to shape future use case scenarios for embodied meditation and encourage active contribution of all participants.