Our doctoral candidate Alicia Valencia received an Honorable Mention award!

🌟 On April 28th, Alicia Valencia presented her paper ‘Open-ended Play For People With Dementia’ at CHI2025 in Yokohama, Japan!

The paper looks at how technology-driven design can support open-ended play for people with dementia, fostering confidence, social engagement, and self-expression. Findings reveal how open-ended play stimulated self-direction and initiative to accomplish self-imposed goals, both independently and collaboratively!

This work was recognized with an Honorable Mention award! 🏆 This recognition is awarded to papers in the top 5% of submissions and comes with a CHI 2025 Honorable Mention certificate. Congratulations Alicia! 🎉

The paper is co-authored by Maarten Houben, Rens Brankaert, Berry Eggen, and Wijnand IJsselsteijn

➡️ The publication is now also available via open access here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713930