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

Winners from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa present their modern methods for inclusive education

Paris, France – December three, 2021

The ICT four Inclusion Challenge (ICT4IC) aims to condition inclusive education for individuals with disabilities in Africa. The three successful teams had been presented with their awards these days for the duration of the ceremony which took put just about, livestreamed from Atos’ headquarters in Bezons and its places of work in Munich. The competitors saw 202 purposes with above 400 members from 37 countries about the earth contend.

The competitors was arranged by Atos and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf for German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) alongside one another with the Make-IT Alliance. Electronic inclusion stands at the coronary heart of Atos’ raison d’etre and materializes into Atos’ experience portfolio, with distinct methods encouraging individuals with momentary or permanent disabilities to function with no barriers in the digital workplace.

The goal of the challenge is to produce digital innovations which are created to boost obtain to education for those people with disabilities in Africa. The teams had been requested to submit a digital or complex innovation (strategy, mock-up or evidence-of-strategy (PoC)) that offers or increases obtain to education for children, youths and/or grownups with disabilities in Africa. This could be a digital product or software digital assistive technologies an strategy to elevate awareness for inclusive education using digital technologies and accessibility methods for on the internet learning environments.

Right after an initial 1st spherical in which ten teams had been chosen by 24 judges to show up at a 2-7 days virtual bootcamp, the 9 industry experts robust closing jury panel, built up of Atos executives as effectively as industry experts from GIZ, the personal sector, civil society and worldwide corporations, chose three finalists. These are:

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

Vinsighte is a looking through software / software that will make use of Synthetic Intelligence to help the visually impaired to read conveniently. It is effective by scanning by way of texts on books and looking through the books aloud to the visually impaired person. The team gained €6,500.

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

This custom-made application offers obtainable and very affordable Digital Education and Teaching Portal for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The team gained €2,500.

• three^rd prize: ‘Talking Charts’, Kenya

This answer addresses the accessibility worries of knowledge visualization for the individuals with visible impairment and blind individuals by way of synthetic speech and car-captioning. The team gained €1,000.

Each individual participant in every of three successful teams was awarded a committed three-month mentorship program at Atos starting off in January 2022, as effectively as monetary prizes and an prospect to pitch to be element of Atos Scaler, the Group’s accelerator program.

Commenting on these success, Udo Littke, Head of Atos in Central Europe stated “Congratulations to our winners and to all of our contestants! I’m blown-absent by the creativity and high quality of the entries.Access to education is a person of the finest barriers to inclusion for children, younger people and grownups with disabilities in Africa and digital innovations can help to triumph over this challenge by getting rid of barriers to education for people with disabilities. We’re quite happy to encourage the new technology to help condition the inclusive education in Africa”.

The judging panel was very carefully chosen to present experience in the fields of education, Information and Communication Technological innovation (ICT), innovation, accessibility, and disability inclusion as effectively as regional African perspectives. The competitors entrants required to be permanent citizens of an African nation or non-citizens teaming up with an African firm, proving that their answer is not still readily accessible on the marketplace and encouraging that individuals of disabilities are possibly element of the team or involved into the item advancement method.

To obtain out far more, remember to go to https://ict4inclusionchallenge.web/ .

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Image 1: Oluwatomisin Kolawole from “Vinsights” Image 2: Santie Terreblanche , Thomas Bezuidenhout, Taryn Du Toit, Mpilo Khumalo from “Digital E&T” and Image three: Eric Maina Wamugu from “Chatting Charts”

About Atos

Atos is a world wide chief in digital transformation with 107,000 workers and annual income of above € 11 billion. European range a person in cybersecurity, cloud and superior-functionality computing, the Group offers personalized stop-to-stop methods for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization solutions and goods, Atos is dedicated to a protected and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris and involved in the CAC forty ESG and Future 20 indexes.

The purpose of Atos is to help style the upcoming of the details house. Its experience and solutions support the advancement of knowledge, education and exploration in a multicultural approach and contribute to the advancement of scientific and technological excellence. Across the earth, the Group enables its prospects and workers, and associates of societies at substantial to dwell, function and produce sustainably, in a harmless and protected details house.

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Laura Fau | [email protected] | +33 6 seventy three sixty four 04 eighteen | @laurajanefau