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Focus: how people learn, individually across the lifespan and collectively in organisations, and how technology should be designed and introduced to support it.

Status: MSc Human-Computer Interaction, University of Siegen. One project in development; earlier research on organisational learning (2019).

Open to: [add: student assistant, research assistant or PhD positions]

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Why I study this

Two moments shaped my questions. In a Vietnamese hospital I watched an older woman stand at a vending machine with a banknote in her hand, unable to work out how to buy a drink, until someone stepped in to show her. This reminded me of a senior Swedish colleague who could connect a laptop wirelessly but still preferred a cable, saying the technology was for a younger generation. Both scenes made me ask how adults keep learning with technology across a lifetime, what gets in the way, and what design and communication can do about it. [Draft for you to edit: keep only what you are comfortable sharing.]

Current project: encouraging older adults to learn and create digitally in Vietnam

Main question: How can we encourage older adults in developing countries, such as Vietnam, to learn and create digitally?

Sub-questions

• How do older adults perceive digital content and digital content creation?
• How does ageism affect older adults' digital participation?
• What types of content do older adults in developing countries create, and why?
• What enablers exist in developing countries for older adults' digital participation?

Planned approach: digital ethnography, because literature in Vietnamese is limited, followed by online interviews with digital trainers and older content creators in Vietnam.

Status: reviewing existing work and defining the research gap. [Add timeline, ethics considerations and any supervisor interest.]

Context: Vietnam is projected to move from an ageing to an aged society in about 18 years (UN DESA Population Division, 2026). In the 2018 national survey of people aged 60 and over, only 12.7% had internet access (Vu et al., 2020), and the community Intergenerational Self-Help Club model reaches about 15% of older people (United Nations Viet Nam, 2025). [These facts come from my narrative review; check each against its source before sending.]

Stance: I treat older adults as active learners and creators, and I study ageism as a factor that shapes participation.

Next direction: senior workers, AI and organisational knowledge

• How do senior workers view, adopt and use AI in daily work?
• How can organisations design to facilitate this?
• How does it affect knowledge transfer inside the organisation?

Status: early idea; the research gap still needs to be mapped. This connects my industry background and information design work with older adults' learning and organisational learning.

Also exploring: senior entrepreneurship and the role technology such as AI could play, and how to communicate digital literacy and healthy ageing effectively to older adults in Vietnam, including through offline channels.