The ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work (Digit), co-led by the University of Sussex Business School and Leeds University Business School, has teamed up with Better Images of AI to launch a competition to create more realistic stock images of ‘digital transformation at work’.
Professor Jacqueline O'Reilly, Co-Director of Digit, devised the competition in order help reimagine how some of the key challenges and opportunities for the digital transformation of work are visualised.
The imagery available to illustrate how work is changing is currently limited and too often limited to images of the technology, young 'digital nomads' in beautiful locations, sanitised high-tech warehouses, and white-collar business environments. However, Digit’s recent report, ‘Digital Dialogues: Shaping the digital transformation of work’, reporting on a five-year programme of research, provides a more nuanced overview of the kinds of changes taking place.
Images that better visualise the real-world transformations occurring and their impacts on people and communities are urgently needed.
Drawing upon the report, the competition has four themes: Digital adoption; Digital inclusion; Changing employment contracts and conditions; and Digital dialogues.
Images should relate to one or more of these themes and they should also reflect the realities of digital transformation rather than hype and speculation about AI. There will be eight winners across these categories, as well as one ‘Grand Prize’, each with a monetary award between £300-£600 up for grabs.
The competition closes on Sunday 18 May 2025 (23:00 UTC). It is open to anyone over the age of 18, regardless of skill, creative field, or geographic location.
Selected entries will have the opportunity to be made available in the Better Images of AI library on a Creative Commons license 4.0. Winning entries will be required to transfer the ownership of copyright to the University of Sussex (Digit Centre).
Entries will be shortlisted and judged by a panel of experts in different fields including creative, communications, technical, digital, and work.
Find out more, including how to apply, on the competition’s Digit webpage.