Digital Twins for Social Good (DUC Brabant)

Technology is increasingly becoming part of our daily lives, helping us manage tasks, make decisions, and improve efficiency. One emerging concept is the idea of a digital twin: a digital representation of a person that can assist with specific tasks on their behalf. This case is centered around the theme Digital Twins for Social Good. The goal is not to build a final product, but to develop a well-researched concept, framework, or idea that explores how a digital twin can be used in a responsible and meaningful way.

During the case, your group will be divided into smaller teams. Each team will work on one of the three challenges below. 

Challenge 1: Personal Task Assistant

This challenge focuses on supporting university students in their daily lives. Students often deal with many administrative and organizational tasks, such as managing deadlines, scheduling, and communicating about assignments. The question is how a digital twin can assist a student by taking over a limited set of these tasks, while ensuring that the student remains in control and that privacy and security are maintained.

In this challenge, you will design a concept for a student-focused digital assistant. You should define a specific type of student and a clearly scoped set of tasks. You will determine which tasks the twin can perform independently, which require user approval, and which should never be automated. You should also explore what makes such a system useful, trustworthy, and acceptable to users.

 Challenge 2: Digital Twin Collaboration

This challenge explores how multiple digital twins can work together in situations that involve more than one person, such as group projects or shared planning. The key question is how these digital twins can collaborate effectively while protecting privacy, limiting unnecessary data sharing, and maintaining clear human accountability.

You will design a concept for a multi-user scenario in which digital twins coordinate on behalf of different people. This could include, for example, student group work or scheduling between multiple stakeholders. You should identify all actors involved and define what each twin is allowed to know and do. In addition, you will explore how twins exchange information, negotiate, resolve conflicts, and when they should escalate decisions to humans.

Challenge 3: Digital Twin Skill Acquisition and Learning

This challenge focuses on how a digital twin can learn and improve over time. A useful digital twin should not remain static, but should adapt by learning user preferences, recognizing patterns, and improving through feedback. However, this introduces challenges such as privacy risks, bias, learning undesirable behavior, and reduced transparency.

In this challenge, you will design a framework for how a digital twin can acquire, improve, and retire skills in a responsible way. You should define several example skills and describe how each skill is identified, learned, validated, monitored, and updated over time. You should also explain how skills can be paused, corrected, or removed, and what role the human plays throughout this process.