Winners of first ‘ICT 4 Inclusion Challenge’ in Africa announced

Winners from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa current their revolutionary remedies for inclusive education and learning

Paris, France – December 3, 2021

The ICT four Inclusion Problem (ICT4IC) aims to shape inclusive education and learning for individuals with disabilities in Africa. The three profitable teams were introduced with their awards today throughout the ceremony which took position nearly, livestreamed from Atos’ headquarters in Bezons and its offices in Munich. The competitors saw 202 purposes with over four hundred members from 37 international locations close to the entire world compete.

The competitors was structured by Atos and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf for German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Enhancement (BMZ) jointly with the Make-IT Alliance. Digital inclusion stands at the coronary heart of Atos’ raison d’etre and materializes into Atos’ knowledge portfolio, with particular remedies aiding individuals with momentary or lasting disabilities to work with no obstacles in the electronic workplace.

The purpose of the problem is to build electronic improvements which are built to enhance obtain to education and learning for people with disabilities in Africa. The teams were questioned to submit a electronic or technical innovation (notion, mock-up or proof-of-strategy (PoC)) that provides or enhances obtain to education and learning for kids, youths and/or older people with disabilities in Africa. This could be a electronic machine or application electronic assistive technologies an notion to raise consciousness for inclusive education and learning utilizing electronic technologies and accessibility remedies for on the internet discovering environments.

Soon after an original first round in which ten teams were picked by 24 judges to go to a two-week virtual bootcamp, the 9 industry experts strong closing jury panel, made up of Atos executives as properly as industry experts from GIZ, the non-public sector, civil society and worldwide businesses, selected three finalists. These are:

• 1^st prize and competitors winner: ‘Vinsighte’, Nigeria

Vinsighte is a looking through program / application that would make use of Artificial Intelligence to aid the visually impaired to study conveniently. It will work by scanning as a result of texts on books and looking through the books aloud to the visually impaired consumer. The group received €6,five hundred.

• two^nd prize: ‘Virtual E&T’, South Africa

This custom-made application provides obtainable and inexpensive Virtual Education and Training Portal for individuals with mental disabilities. The group received €2,five hundred.

• 3^rd prize: ‘Talking Charts’, Kenya

This solution addresses the accessibility worries of knowledge visualization for the individuals with visible impairment and blind individuals as a result of synthetic speech and car-captioning. The group received €1,000.

Each participant in each individual of three profitable teams was awarded a dedicated 3-thirty day period mentorship program at Atos starting in January 2022, as properly as monetary prizes and an possibility to pitch to be portion of Atos Scaler, the Group’s accelerator program.

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-absent by the creativity and top quality of the entries.Access to education and learning is a person of the biggest obstacles to inclusion for kids, young folks and older people with disabilities in Africa and electronic improvements can enable to triumph over this problem by getting rid of obstacles to education and learning for folks with disabilities. We’re quite very pleased to persuade the new generation to enable shape the inclusive education and learning in Africa”.

The judging panel was meticulously picked to deliver know-how in the fields of education and learning, Details and Conversation Engineering (ICT), innovation, accessibility, and incapacity inclusion as properly as regional African perspectives. The competitors entrants needed to be lasting people of an African place or non-people teaming up with an African organization, proving that their solution is not but readily offered on the current market and encouraging that individuals of disabilities are possibly portion of the group or integrated into the item advancement course of action.

To uncover out extra, be sure to go to https://ict4inclusionchallenge.net/ .

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Image 1: Oluwatomisin Kolawole from “Vinsights” Image two: Santie Terreblanche , Thomas Bezuidenhout, Taryn Du Toit, Mpilo Khumalo from “Virtual E&T” and Image 3: Eric Maina Wamugu from “Talking Charts”

About Atos

Atos is a world leader in electronic transformation with 107,000 employees and annual income of over € eleven billion. European selection a person in cybersecurity, cloud and significant-functionality computing, the Team provides customized conclude-to-conclude remedies for all industries in seventy one international locations. A pioneer in decarbonization providers and goods, Atos is fully commited to a protected and decarbonized electronic for its purchasers. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), detailed on Euronext Paris and integrated in the CAC 40 ESG and Subsequent twenty indexes.

The purpose of Atos is to enable design the long run of the information space. Its know-how and providers assistance the advancement of understanding, education and learning and investigation in a multicultural approach and contribute to the advancement of scientific and technological excellence. Across the entire world, the Team allows its buyers and employees, and members of societies at significant to are living, work and build sustainably, in a safe and protected information space.

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