Visit to URI Soča
University Rehabilitation Institute of Republic of Slovenia - URI Soča was a host for twelve representatives of all four partner insitutions involved in the project ICT-AAC (29th November 2013). Three speech and language pathologist who work within the Children's Unit or within the Unit for rehabilitation of patients who suffered brain damage presented their use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
You can view the full report, prepared by Jasmina Ivsac Pavlisa, PhD, here.
Study visit to IRCyN Laboratory Nantes
In order to broaden the knowledge about quality of user experience, several memebers of ICT-AAC team visited Image and Video-Communication group (IVC), one of research groups within University of Nsnts, IRCCyN.
Full study visit report, prepared by Jesenka Pibernik, PhD, can be downloaded here.
First Open Day of project ICT-AAC
The first Open Day of project ICT-AAC was held on Saturday, November 9th, from 10-13 h at the Centre for Rehabilitation at Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences. Fifty visitors interested in the issue of assisted communication had the opportunity to get more insight into developed applications and consult with speech therapists and rehabilitators on how to use them.
"The second Open Day of project ICT-AAC" will be held on December 12th at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Innovative information-communication services for the youngest children in Zadar
Among persons with complex communication needs who cannot communicate in the most usual and typical way, there are often the youngest children who due to different reasons cannot reach their environment through speech. Along with the Third Croatian Symposium on Early Childhood Intervention (Zadar, 26-28. September 2013) two events were organized in order to promote the project ICT Competence Network for Innovative Services for Persons with Complex Communication Needs (ICT-AAC). The goal of this international symposium was focused on the importance of the team work and collaboration among different professionals, but also on the new types of services like the high-technology solutions that can improve communication between the youngest users and their environment.
Study Visit to Cologne
Project members visited Advisory Centre for Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) (Beratungszentrums für Unterstützte Kommunikation) at the University of Cologne from 8 to 10 October 2013. ICT-AAC team consisted of four project members; three from Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences and one from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing.
The hosts presented us with current state in the field of AAC and discussed their experience from technical, rehabilitation and education aspects. We thank them for their hospitality while some of the photographs can be found below.
Dissemination and Visibility Events
First project dissemination event (June 27-28, 2013) and visibility event (June 28, 2013) are collocated with the conference Contel 2013. Events are scheduled as follows:
Thursday (June 27 2013)
- 15.30-17.00 - Poster presentations and demonstrations of AAC applications
Friday (June 28 2013) 9.00 - 10.30
- 9.00 - 10.30 - Special session on eAccessibility and User Experience (eAUX)
- 11.00 - 12.30 - Project visibility event (public project presentation and demonstration of implemented AAC applications)
During special session on eAccessibility and User Experience (eAUX), chaired by Željka Car (University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Croatia), the following papers will be presented:
- The Connected Vitality System: Enhancing Social Presence for Older Adults
- Achilleas Achilleos (University of Cyprus, Cyprus); Christos Mettouris (University of Cyprus, Cyprus); George Papadopoulos (University of Cyprus, Cyprus); Katja Neureiter (University of Salzburg, Austria); Claudia Rappold (University of Salzburg, Austria); Christiane Moser (University of Salzburg, Austria); Manfred Tscheligi (University of Salzburg, Austria); Lóránt Vajda (Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary); Toth Andras (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary); Péter Hanák (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary); Omar Jimenez (PresenceDisplays, The Netherlands); Robbert Smit (PresenceDisplays, The Netherlands)
- A Proposal for Development of Software to Support Specific Learning Difficulties
- Jasna Hamzabegovic (University of Bihac & Pedagogical Faculty, Bosnia and Herzegovina); Damir Kalpic (University of Zagreb, Croatia)
- Introducing Gesture Interaction in the Ambient Assisted Living Platform universAAL
- Andrej Grguric (Ericsson, Croatia); Miran Mosmondor (Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Croatia); Mario Kusek (University of Zagreb, Croatia); Carsten Stocklöw (Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics, Germany); Dario Salvi (Life Supporting Technologies, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain)
- Cache and Prefetch Mechanisms for Improving Symbol Usage in Symbol Based Applications
- Ivan Vucak (Sedam IT, Croatia); Marin Vukovic (University of Zagreb, Croatia); Željka Car (University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Croatia)
- Value Network for ICT-assisted Augmentative and Alternative Communication
- Ignac Lovrek (University of Zagreb, Croatia)
Kick-off meeting
The first kick-off meeting of the project “ICT Competence network for Innovative Service for Persons with Complex Communication Needs” was held on May 13th 2013 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. Consortium partners organized the meeting for representatives from academy, associates and industry. The following agenda was presented:
- General introduction
- Project coordinator, Vedran Podobnik, presented the project basic information (type of financing, name and acronym, duration and budget) and stressed out the project objectives and planned results, as well as participants in project implementation and organizational structure.
- Project objectives
- FER team leader, Željka Car, particularly explained relation of the project purpose with the development of innovative services for people with complex communication needs.
- Project management
- Project manager, Ivana Rašan Sladoljev, briefly described the main administrative activities and closely explained the responsibility of consortium partners to CFCA.
- Presentation of all project participants
- Confirmation of the Steering Committee
- Value network expert, Ignac Lovrek, introduced the project steering committee members and announced their first activities.
- Presentation of the project web
- Technical expert and software designer, Marin Vuković, unveiled a test version of the project web.
- Questions and answers
The meeting ended with the announcement of the first Dissemination event and the first Visibility event that will be co-located with the conference ConTEL (http://www.contel.hr/2013/) at the end of June 2013.
