Winners of first ‘ICT 4 Inclusion Challenge’ in Africa announced
Winners from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa existing their impressive answers for inclusive instruction
Paris, France – December 3, 2021
The ICT 4 Inclusion Problem (ICT4IC) aims to shape inclusive instruction for people today with disabilities in Africa. The a few successful groups ended up offered with their awards nowadays during the ceremony which took put pretty much, livestreamed from Atos’ headquarters in Bezons and its offices in Munich. The level of competition observed 202 purposes with more than 400 members from 37 countries all around the planet contend.
The level of competition was structured by Atos and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf for German Federal Ministry for Financial Cooperation and Improvement (BMZ) jointly with the Make-IT Alliance. Electronic inclusion stands at the coronary heart of Atos’ raison d’etre and materializes into Atos’ encounter portfolio, with unique answers serving to people today with non permanent or long-lasting disabilities to get the job done devoid of obstacles in the electronic place of work.
The intention of the obstacle is to establish electronic improvements which are built to strengthen entry to instruction for those with disabilities in Africa. The groups ended up asked to post a electronic or technological innovation (plan, mock-up or evidence-of-principle (PoC)) that presents or increases entry to instruction for children, youths and/or adults with disabilities in Africa. This could be a electronic unit or application electronic assistive systems an plan to raise awareness for inclusive instruction making use of electronic systems and accessibility answers for on line finding out environments.
Immediately after an initial initial spherical in which 10 groups ended up picked by 24 judges to show up at a two-week digital bootcamp, the nine industry experts solid ultimate jury panel, designed up of Atos executives as properly as industry experts from GIZ, the personal sector, civil modern society and global businesses, selected a few finalists. These are:
- 1st prize and level of competition winner: ‘Vinsighte’, Nigeria
Vinsighte is a looking through program / application that makes use of Artificial Intelligence to support the visually impaired to go through conveniently. It operates by scanning by means of texts on books and looking through the books aloud to the visually impaired person. The crew received €6,five hundred.
twond prize: ‘Virtual E&T’, South Africa
This custom made application presents accessible and very affordable Virtual Schooling and Schooling Portal for people today with intellectual disabilities. The crew received €2,five hundred.
3rd prize: ‘Talking Charts’, Kenya
This answer addresses the accessibility issues of facts visualization for the people today with visible impairment and blind people today by means of artificial speech and car-captioning. The crew received €1,000.
Every single participant in every single of a few successful groups was awarded a devoted 3-month mentorship plan at Atos starting in January 2022, as properly as monetary prizes and an opportunity to pitch to be section of Atos Scaler, the Group’s accelerator plan.
Commenting on these results, Udo Littke, Head of Atos in Central Europe said “Congratulations to our winners and to all of our contestants! I’m blown-away by the creativeness and high-quality of the entries.Entry to instruction is a single of the best obstacles to inclusion for children, young folks and adults with disabilities in Africa and electronic improvements can aid to defeat this obstacle by eliminating obstacles to instruction for folks with disabilities. We’re incredibly happy to encourage the new generation to aid shape the inclusive instruction in Africa”.
The judging panel was cautiously picked to provide skills in the fields of instruction, Data and Communication Engineering (ICT), innovation, accessibility, and incapacity inclusion as properly as regional African views. The level of competition entrants needed to be long-lasting inhabitants of an African region or non-inhabitants teaming up with an African corporation, proving that their answer is not yet conveniently obtainable on the industry and encouraging that people today of disabilities are possibly section of the crew or bundled into the products progress procedure.
To obtain out much more, be sure to go to https://ict4inclusionchallenge.web/ .
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Photo 1: Oluwatomisin Kolawole from “Vinsights” Photo two: Santie Terreblanche , Thomas Bezuidenhout, Taryn Du Toit, Mpilo Khumalo from “Virtual E&T” and Photo 3: Eric Maina Wamugu from “Conversing Charts”
About Atos
Atos is a world wide leader in electronic transformation with 107,000 workforce and yearly revenue of more than € eleven billion. European range a single in cybersecurity, cloud and large-general performance computing, the Group presents tailored conclusion-to-conclusion answers for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization companies and solutions, Atos is dedicated to a secure and decarbonized electronic for its shoppers. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), detailed on Euronext Paris and bundled in the CAC forty ESG and Following twenty indexes.
The intent of Atos is to aid layout the potential of the information and facts room. Its skills and companies aid the progress of know-how, instruction and analysis in a multicultural tactic and lead to the progress of scientific and technological excellence. Across the planet, the Group allows its consumers and workforce, and customers of societies at huge to stay, get the job done and establish sustainably, in a safe and sound and secure information and facts room.
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Laura Fau | [email protected] | +33 six 73 sixty four 04 18 | @laurajanefau
