What is creative computing, how to think about creativity in computing, and in what ways are our understandings of computing and the wider technoimaginary socio-culturally conditioned? Robert Bobnič, Nina Cvar, Jernej Kaluža, Natalija Majsova, Aljoša Pužar and Jasmina Šepetavc, researchers at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Religion, zoom in on these topics in the context of the project Remembering the Early Digital Age: Cultural and Media-Archaeological Aspects of Technotopianism, Technopessimism and Technostalgia – TECHNOPST (ARIS, N6-0302). 

The project runs in collaboration with the European COST network Grassroots of Digital Europe (CA2114 – GRADE). Majsova and Šepetavc have recently taken part in the co-organization of the 3rd conference of the network, which took place in Belgrade on 13-14 March 2025. The aim of the conference was to open a discussion on the history of creative computing in the post-Yugoslav space, with a special focus on the role of women and minorities in the development of this field.

Šepetavc and Majsova organised and moderated a round table discussion with women pioneers of computing in the socialist Yugoslavia. The participants discussed computing as a highly creative field, which at the same time shaped in complex ways by social norms and values, politics, and socio-political and economic development, by female computer scientists – groundbreaking researchers who have been working in the field since at least the 1980s – Meliha Handžić, Dunja Mladenić, Gordana Pavlović-Lazetić and Biljana Stamatović. 

More highlights from the conference are available on the GRADE COST action website.