While the global industry rushes to digitize every aspect of their operations, researcher Linda Newnes warned that they are leaving behind one piece: people. “You can have the best technology in the world, but if no one wants to use it, it doesn’t work,” she said from the stage of Tec Science Summit 2025.

As director of the Centre for People-Led Digitalisation in the United Kingdom, and researcher at the University of Bath, Newnes works with companies and manufacturers to help them adopt new technologies in their processes. Her work has revealed that the true engine of digital transformation is not artificial intelligence or robots, but the very human beings who work with them.

In an interview with TecScience before the event, Newnes shared a case where a company reduced its delivery time from six weeks to one by implementing basic digital tools. The key to success, Newnes explained, was not the complexity of the technology but the involvement of the workers. “They were involved in the process from the beginning,” she said. “They got involved, they felt empowered.”

Getting companies to focus on their workers has its challenges. Newnes explained that one of the main obstacles is the perception that digitalization always improves working conditions. “Imagine that you are an employee and that part of the job that they are digitalizing is your favorite part of the job,” she said in her speech. “It’s not improving your job, rather it’s making you less happy.”

Technology for Neurodivergence and Dignity

Her collaborations also address how digitalization can create more inclusive work environments, especially for neurodivergent people. In the United Kingdom, between 80 and 85% of that group is unemployed or underemployed. “Neurodivergent people want to work but they are not being offered the type of work where they can succeed,” Newnes told the audience.

The important thing is to protect the dignity of people who use these emerging technologies. In her speech, she argued that this is one of the key parts that the industry often sets aside. Newnes shared an anecdote from her own life to convey her message: she has arthritis in her hands, which causes them to be bent. “They will never be flat,” she shared with the audience. When she travels to the United States and goes through customs, they ask her to flatten her hand to take her fingerprints upon entry.

She explains that sometimes they let her pass without fingerprints, other times she has to undergo secondary controls, but they always force her to try the impossible. “Not even my surgeon can flatten my hand, I don’t think they will be able to,” she said. This example encapsulates a broader problem in digital advances: “We digitized a system that doesn’t help my dignity,” says Newnes. For that reason, her work always prioritizes human and labor needs.

When reflecting on the future of work in the coming decades, Newnes envisions a more balanced and collaborative approach: “I would like to see a workforce that works with technology, that is part of their team instead of having it imposed on them,” Newnes said. For her, that vision is possible if the industry is honest and realistic about which parts of their processes have to be digitized and which benefit from a human touch.

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