My colleague from the Department of Informatics and Media, professor Annika Waern and I decided to try to organise the NordiCHI conference in Uppsala in 2024. I think it is a great idea to try to make our two HCI departments work closer together and collaborate around such a thing. The NordiCHI conference has been running bi-annually for around 20 years, and I have been attending it more or less every time. Many of my academic friends also go, and I have also had a few publications on this conference. Last time when organised by Tallin University, I was one of the chairs for case study papers.

NordiCHI is the principal Nordic conference for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. NordiCHI addresses the area broadly, and often I find many interesting papers presented related to user-centred design and eHealth. It is a meeting spot for researchers from academia and industry, artists, teachers and others working within HCI and associated areas.

Annika Waern and I have had meetings with Akademikonferens about the bid. Akademikonferens is a common full-service Professional Congress Organizer for Karolinska Institutet, SLU and Uppsala University. Their work is to focus our research areas, such as Human-Computer Interaction, by organising successful meetings and conferences. So far, they have helped us understand how you write a bid, decide locations, themes, and do much of the work behind the proposal. It has been a very positive experience. We will use the traditional atmosphere of Uppsala university with the conference in the main university building, and keynotes in the University Aula. We are also thinking about linking the theme of the meeting to culture and heritage.

We will continue this work in spring 2021, and submit before the end of May. The decision about who will organise the conference will be based on the venue’s attractiveness, the capacity to use current HCI communities within academy and industry, past expertise in organizing similar conferences, and the global recognition of people in charge of the meeting. Wish us luck!!!