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POP 02

Social Media & How it changes your Mind

Amboss Rampe · Zürich, Switzerland

Two speakers. One question: what is social media actually doing to us? A researcher who studies the systems, and a strategist who builds inside them.

Artwork of a head opening into a colourful brain with hands placing social media logos.

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About this event

Two speakers. One question: what is social media actually doing to us?

Every feed you scroll has been shaped by decisions someone made. What surfaces. What disappears. What you never see at all. Those decisions are made by people, inside companies, using systems most of us never look at directly.

For POP 02 we've brought together someone who studies those systems and someone who builds inside them. Stefania Ionescu researches how recommendation and moderation tools shape what a society sees. Sophia Kramer has spent a decade building communication for brands on exactly those platforms, and now builds AI tools for the people who do that work.

Two vantage points on the same machinery, in the same room.

Event flow

  1. 19:00Welcome Apéro
    • Arrival, drinks and informal networking.
  2. 19:30Talks
    • Who sees what: How social media design choices shape work, opinion, and culture · Stefania Ionescu
    • Is social media making us anti-social? · Sophia Kramer
    • 20 minutes each, followed by Q&A with the room.
  3. From 20:30Open discussion, networking & DJ set
    • The floor opens up: questions, conversations and new connections.
    • DJ Set by Mihai Barascu.

Speakers

Stefania Ionescu

Stefania Ionescu

Postdoctoral researcher, ETH Zurich

“Who sees what: How social media design choices shape work, opinion, and culture”

Stefania studies what happens when algorithms decide what people see. Her research looks at recommendation, moderation and filtering tools — the invisible machinery behind every feed — and asks what they do to opinion, to work, and to culture.

She started in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, then took a master's in Logic at the ILLC in Amsterdam, cum laude. Her PhD at the University of Zurich, on the societal impact of these systems, was awarded summa cum laude. In 2025 she received the FAN Award for outstanding scientific achievement in Law and Economics. She is now a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich working on responsible automation.

Recently she worked with Bluesky feeds to test a deceptively simple question: if you change how posts are ranked, how much does what people see change with it? She also co-designs university courses — Game Theory and Algorithmic Concepts, Social Computing — that put this research in front of the engineers who will build the next generation of these systems. Outside the lab she enjoys board games, Dungeons & Dragons, and hiking.

Sophia Kramer

Sophia Kramer

CEO and co-founder, Smove AI

“Is social media making us anti-social?”

Sophia has spent ten years on the other side of the feed. As a designer and strategist in agency and brand roles, she has built communication platforms for Audemars Piguet, FC Bayern, BMW, Burger King, Paulaner and Coop — work that reached millions of people through the platforms we'll be talking about.

She trained as a designer and holds a BA in International Business Studies from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. She was named 30u30 Swiss Communication and is a Cannes Young Lion medalist.

She now runs Smove AI, which builds AI agents for Swiss and German creative agencies — one each for Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook — that draft social content and pass it to a human for approval before publishing. Ten years of building for these platforms, and a daily view of where they're heading next.

Outside the work she runs MAPO, an NGO supporting education for children in Tanzania, is a committed Rotarian, and plays chess and piano.

Live Music

Mihai Barascu

Mihai Barascu

Live DJ Set

Mihai works at the intersection of technology, arts and humanities. With a background in mechanical engineering and finance, he is currently working as a chef while exploring music, sharing an interest in media from electric guitars to digital instruments. His current attention in electronic music is focused on minimal house and techno.