From 6 to 10 September 2026, the international academic and professional community will gather in Sarajevo for the 37th Annual Conference of the International Information Management Association (IIMA 2026), hosted by International Burch University.
Under the theme Rebuilding Bridges: Sustainable Cyber-Physical Integration in the AI Era, we are moving beyond technical specs to ask a vital question:
How do we bridge the gap between human values and artificial intelligence?
Few places could express that idea more powerfully than Sarajevo.
This is a city whose story has long been written through bridges—bridges of stone, bridges of memory, bridges between cultures, and bridges between eras. It is also the homeland of Ivo Andrić, the Nobel Prize laureate whose literary workgave the bridge one of its deepest meanings in modern European thought.
For Andrić, a bridge was never merely an object of engineering. It was a civilisation made visible. It was the human refusal to remain divided. It was the deliberate act of joining two sides so that movement, encounter, trade, understanding and continuity might flourish. In his celebrated work The Bridge on the Drina, the bridge stands not only over water, but over time itself—linking peoples, generations and destinies.
That symbolism is profoundly relevant in the present age.
Today, the divide is no longer only geographical. On one side stand human institutions, communities, values and lived experience. On the other stand rapidly evolving systems: artificial intelligence, cyber-physical networks, automation, data infrastructures, blockchain architectures and digital economies. Between these two spaces, connection cannot be assumed. It must be designed. It must be governed. It must be trusted.
It must be bridged.
That is the essential purpose of IIMA 2026.
The conference will convene researchers, practitioners, policymakers and innovators working across information systems, AI, cybersecurity, analytics, digital transformation, sustainability and human-computer interaction. Yet beyond the technical agenda lies a larger mission: ensuring that the systems of the future remain accountable to the people they are meant to serve.
As Andrić understood, bridges do not appear by accident. They are imagined, planned and built because separation carries a cost. In much the same way, responsible technological progress requires intentional design, ethical leadership and interdisciplinary cooperation.
Without these foundations, innovation may accelerate while society fragments.
Sarajevo provides a uniquely meaningful setting for such reflection. It is a city that has known fracture yet continues to connect, known hardship yet continues to welcome, known history yet continues to renew itself. Its urban landscape, where Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and contemporary influences coexist, reminds visitors that complexity need not lead to conflict. Properly managed, it can produce richness.
During IIMA 2026, delegates will present new research, exchange ideas and establish partnerships that may shape the next generation of intelligent systems. Scholars will meet industry leaders. Educators will engage entrepreneurs. Young researchers will connect with senior experts. Across disciplines and continents, new bridges will be formed.
This too is part of Andrić’s inheritance.
At a time when technology often advances faster than trust, regulation or shared understanding, the call to rebuild bridges is urgent: bridges between innovation and ethics, efficiency and wellbeing, automation and dignity, data and wisdom.
This September, the international community will gather in Sarajevo not merely to discuss information management, but to continue one of humanity’s oldest and noblest tasks: building bridges strong enough to carry the future.
Save the Date
37th Annual Conference of the
International Information Management Association (IIMA 2026)
📍 Sarajevo
📅 6–10 September 2026
🏛 Hosted by International Burch University