39th Bled eConference
CO-CREATING HUMAN-CENTRED AND
RESPONSIBLE DIGITAL FUTURES
June 7 – June 10, 2026 | Bled, Slovenia
Latest News
Call for submissions for RIDI 2025
We kindly invite you to submit an extended abstract for the Third International Workshop on Research for Impact in Digital Innovation (RIDI). Since 2023, the workshop series is a collaboration between the HU University of Applied Sciences (Utrecht, The Netherlands), Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), HAN UAS (Arnhem, The Netherlands), and TU Wien (Austria) in order to foster exchange on impact of digital innovation: its nature, evaluation, stimulation, and through examples of projects and activities connecting practice, research, and education.
The workshop will be an onsite event held on June 8, 2025 in conjunction with the 38th Bled eConference (Bled, Slovenia). It will be a mix of presentations, project reports and interactive workshops in order to continue the discussion as it took place during the previous RIDI workshops.
More information on the event can be accessed following this link.
Submission via Easychair system can be accessed through this link.
38th Bled eConference Call for Papers
Dear Colleagues,
you are kindly invited to visit the Call for Papers for the upcoming 38th Bled eConference, entitled:
EMPOWERING TRANSFORMATION: SHAPING DIGITAL FUTURES FOR ALL
Welcome to submit your full research paper or research in progress paper.
The Easychair submission system is now open and can be accessed through this link.
We look forward to your contributions!
Call for papers and a Happy New Year
Call for papers and a Happy New Year
Dear Colleagues,
After the cyberattack that caused delays in our work, we are back. We have met with the members of the program committee and prepared the Call for Papers. Some additional updates will follow.
We already invite you to prepare your paper and join us in June at the conference in Bled.
We will continuously post updates, so we encourage you to follow our website.
On this occasion, we wish you pleasant holidays, a Merry Christmas, and a very happy and healthy New Year.
Your Bled eConference Team
Concluding remarks on the 37th Bled eConference
Dear friends,
We have concluded the 37th Bled eConference in a new setting that allows for even closer discussions and networking. After the first feedback, we can say that the change was well received.
Since Sunday, we had the opportunity to listen to many interesting presentations and stimulating discussions on the topic »Resilience through digital innovation: enabling the twin transition«.
Traditionally, the conference started with the Doctoral Consoritum, where 7 PhD students presented their research projects.
The official conference opening on Monday morning featured insightful keynote speeches from Marianne ter Veen, who shed light on how digital sustainability can create long-term value, transparency and equity for all stakeholders, and Tomi Ilijaš, who demonstrated how AI-driven innovation can improve the lives of individuals, organizations and societies. The opening session continued with a panel addressing the paradigm of evolving data spaces from a technological, sustainability, and humanistic perspective.
Over the three days, 47 research papers and 5 ongoing research papers were presented, focusing on the following topics: Digital Health, Digital Education, Digital Consumer, AI & Data Science, Decision Analytics, Business Models, Digital Transformation of Public Services, Smart Sustainable Cities, Restructured Work, and Digital Ethics.
The main theme of the conference was also reflected in the competition for the best student innovative digital solution, the “Students Bazaar”. The top three places were awarded to teams of Slovenian and Dutch students:
»HelpInHands – Application for Connecting Elderly and Volunteers« by Maja Medved, Maja Juntez- in Gjorgji Srnjakov, Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede,
»Ecommuter – Calculating Carbon Footprint for Your Employees«, by Nick Kuiper, Chaim de Gelder, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Nizozemska, and
»Travel of Taste – Mobile Application for Traditional Food and Drinks«, by Blaž Šimunkovič, Blaž Kvasnik, Žiga Brcar, Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede.
In addition to that, we hosted the workshops: Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Open Data Maturity. Wednesday morning started with the panel on “Empowering Paths: The Importance of Building a Support Network for Women and Girls in IT” and concluded with two awarded “outstanding paper” presentations:
Alinda Kokkinou, Breda University of Applied Sciences & AVANS University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands with the paper “Cultivating a Data-Driven Culture: Exploring the Role of Data Analytic Capability, Employee Empowerment, and Transformational Leadership”
and
Ondrej Mitas, Albert Mandemakers, Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, Ruben D’Hauwers, August Bourgeus, imec-SMIT, VUB, Belgium with their paper: “Empowering Data Sovereignty: Strategies of Data Intermediaries in Data Ecosystems”.
The outstanding reviewer award was presented to Annemae van de Hoef, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Congratulations to all award winners!
Finally, we would like to thank all keynote speakers, presenters, discussants, track chairs, reviewers, and panelists for their valuable contributions and constructive feedback. Above all, we would like to thank you for all the positive feedback we continue to receive.
Over the next few days, we will be uploading photos and publishing highlights from the conference on the website and social media.
We wish all participants a safe journey home and look forward to seeing you again next year.
Your Bled eConference Team
Keynote speaker announcement: Tomi Ilijaš
About Tomi Ilijaš – CEO and founder, ARCTUR
Tomi Ilijaš is founder and CEO of Arctur and he holds a MSc degree from Ljubljana University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Mr. Ilijaš is an entrepreneur focusing on Hi-Tech innovation, who has shared his knowledge and experience to many start-ups and spin-offs in the region. He participated in several EU funded R&D projects, inventing new business models in HPCaaS and successfully breaking the barriers in bringing HPC to manufacturing SMEs. He was a member of EUROHPC Research & Innovation Advisory Group (RIAG) and member of PRACE Industrial Advisory Committee. Recently, his research focus is on transferring new technologies from Industry 4.0 to different sectors, such as health and tourism.
Tomi Ilijaš will present:
AI driven innovation for better living
AI-Driven Innovation for Better Living’ delves into revolutionary AI use-cases in healthcare, showcasing improvements in disease detection, treatment personalization, and operational efficiency. The speech also covers AI’s role in other sectors, especially tourism, illustrating its potential to foster smarter, more sustainable communities.
Conference proceedings are published!
As of today, the conference proceedings from the 37th Bled eConference are published and available through open access.
You can find the proceedings here: https://press.um.si/index.php/ump/catalog/book/880
Important
About conference
Bled eConference has been shaping electronic interactions since 1988. Small supportive community offers the opportunity to benefit from expertise of esteemed researchers. It attracts speakers and delegates from business, government, information technology providers and universities and is the major venue for researchers working in all aspects of digital transformation.
The conference venue is the Alpine village of Bled, 30 km south of the Austrian border – one of the most beautiful spots imaginable. Expect to learn and play and come away feeling that you have achieved more than you normally would at any conference.
With fresh ideas and complementary themes we would like to establish a creative environment for researchers, government, industry/business representatives and technology providers and an attractive meeting point for discussing new R&D and project ideas, also in the spirit of Horizon 2020.
- a fully-refereed Research Track, devoted to researchers in all aspects of digital transformation;
- Doctoral Consortium, offering students to present their ongoing master’s and PhD study results;
- ePrototype Students Bazaar, offering students opportunities to present innovative e- or m-Business or IoT ideas, models, prototypes and apps;
- a Business and Government Panel Track which attracts eminent business and government leaders from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific;
- Business, Government and Academic Workshops and Meetings offering unparalleled opportunities to discuss, share and learn with colleagues from around the world;
- EU projects dissemination meetings; enabling project partners to connect with other similar projects and to disseminate results to a wider community.