Inaugural Zortify Summer School to Address Future of Work

Luxembourg-based human resources (HR) technology company Zortify will organise its first Summer School on the premises of PwC Luxembourg from Monday 28 August to Friday 1 September 2023.

The Zortify Summer School Week, which is expected to be repeated in future, will bring together up to 30 participants around the theme of "The Future of Work". The application process involves signing up and providing a motivation letter, after which experts will review each application and either accept or reject applicants. The deadline to apply is Friday 4 August 2023 for PhD students, postdocs and researchers and Friday 18 August 2023 for industry professionals. Further information is available at https://zortify.com/summer-school/.

Speaking to Chronicle.lu, Dr Christopher Morse, co-director of ZortifyLabs and Zortify Summer School, said: "The future of AI is human, and the future of work is us. Zortify Summer School 2023 offers an unparalleled opportunity to gain knowledge, access tools and build networks that empower academic researchers and industry professionals to actively participate in the ethical and human-centred development of workplace AI."

Chronicle.lu also spoke with other Zortify representatives to learn more about the upcoming Summer School.

Chronicle.lu: Please tell us more about the selected theme and the target audience for the first Zortify Summer School. 

Zortify: Generally speaking, the future of work is not a distant concept - it's about us as individuals and the various professional ecosystems we inhabit. In the future, HR systems and related technologies will no longer be centralised forces but will seamlessly integrate into our daily lives to support employee well-being and healthier organisational cultures. At the Zortify Summer School, all participants delve into this transformative vision and become a catalyst for shaping the future of work. 

The Summer School itself is an interdisciplinary event, aimed at PhD students, postdocs, researchers and industry professionals from the artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), human experience management (evolution of human resources), user experience (UX) design, data science fields. For the PhD students, postdocs and researchers, Zortify Summer School offers not only highly relevant professional content and speakers but also cutting-edge technological solutions. The focus is also the exchange and networking amongst each other and at the same time get in touch with people from various industries to learn more about the needs and challenges they face in their working environment. Any industry professionals, especially those working in the HR sector, are invited to learn more about how to improve and implement the concept of human experience in their companies. Getting in touch with the technology experts (of the future), they could directly benefit from the insights on new technologies provided and learn how to use and/or implement them. 

Chronicle.lu: Please elaborate on some of the main topics that will be covered. 

Zortify: During those five days, we will be covering the following key modules: the Future of Work is us - Human Experience Management and NLP for Workplace Wellbeing (opening topic; the idea is to cover the new tools and technologies to improve the human experience and increase engagement, therefore performance); Human in the Loop - User Experience (how the user experience and visualisation have the human at the centre of design); Natural Language Processing; Explainable AI; Data Visualisation and User Experience Design; Storytelling (how to use data visualisation to tell stories in the most engaging way); [Industry Day on] Thursday 31 August (the afternoon sessions focus on the industry; during main keynotes, three panels and breakout sessions hosted by international experts the goal is to debate, brainstorm and align on the future of work, what we can expect from it, how AI is helping to put the human at the centre of all HR-related decisions and how we can develop technology with the goal to gain data insights and make them accessible, understandable and usable for better decision making); the Summer School closes on Friday with a panel, a keynote and a deeper seminar on ethical AI, going from GDPR to the EU AI Act. 

Chronicle.lu: Is Zortify working with any partners to put this Summer School together? Who will lead the courses (Zortify staff and/or staff from partner organisations)? 

Zortify: Indeed, we are. Besides having PwC as main sponsor, kindly offering us their beautiful premises, we are having several speakers from different organisations, such as: SnT, LIST, Digital Learning Hub, PwC, Finquest, PeoplePowerAI (US), SAP (Germany), EnidiaAI, University of Luxembourg, to name a few. 

Chronicle.lu: What is the main goal of the first Zortify Summer School?

Zortify: This Summer School has several goals: answering the question [of] how the participants can lead and support employee well-being and healthier organisational cultures; demystifying technology for HR and showing the benefits towards human experience management; attracting talents from the cutting-edge of technology and research to the country to bring the debate and discussion to our country; bringing academia, government and industry together, building synergies and bridges amongst those - until [recently] - distant worlds; positioning Luxembourg as a country invested in innovation.