This talk looks into the brief history of embodied intelligence in our planet, natural vs. artificial and individual vs. collective intelligence, before showcasing number of examples of human-machine interaction, and further examine systems that aim to increase participation and harness the collective mind towards participatory governance.

Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis, PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has taught, written about, designed, and built Intelligent Systems, Robots, and systems exhibiting Collective Intelligence, since his early youth, having served as faculty at NYU and NCSR Demokritos. He is the founder of IRML (the Interactive Robots and Media Lab), which achieved wide publicity for "Ibn Sina", the world's first Arabic-Language Android Robot, as well as "FaceBots", Microsoft-award-recipient Social Robots which access info and publish on FaceBook. Furthermore, he has designed and operated the hybrid physical/electronic participation workshops of Recreate Hellas, which he presented at the Council of Europe, and is currently researching further hybrid social platforms that aim to bring forth the future of Participatory Tech, enabling widely accepted yet highly informed and effective multi-level governance