!!! Click here to vote for your top 3 favorite innovations and share this link with your networks !!!

The voting will start on the 23rd of September and end on the 29th.

The result of the voting will be considered by the jury during their selection of the 12 finalists who will present their innovation on the e-pitching event on the 21st of October, from 3:00 to 5:30 pm (CET time).

If SUITCEYES becomes a finalist, this will not be positive just for the project, it will also highlight deafblindness at a totally different level.

Nasrine Olson, SUITCEYES Project Coordinator

The Innovation Radar is a European Commission initiative to identify high potential innovations and innovators in EU-funded research and innovation projects. Using intelligence gathered with the Innovation Radar method, the European Commission has, since 2015, been awarding the annual Innovation Radar Prize to the best EU-funded innovators.

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The conference usually draws more than 4,500 persons annually who attend sessions, visit the exhibition halls, and participate in affiliate meetings and informal gatherings. Given the current situation related to the coronavirus pandemic, some exhibitors and participants withdrew from participation in this year’s conference. However, Harpo attended the conference, presented SUITCEYES on the project stand during the whole event and shared further plans of SUITCEYES!

Harpo further took the opportunity to talk to a person with deafblindness (a participant of this conference), who pointed to the need of quick communication (direct, face-to-face) with a sighted person, e.g.

• a bus driver: to be able to ask him to indicate the stop where to get off
• a passerby: asking for directions, moving around the city

It was a very inspiring conversation to explore even more the way in which people with deafblindness can communicate immediately with sighted and hearing people.

Unfortunately, however, it was the last opportunity to share the results and experience of SUITCEYES with CSUN AT Conference visitors from around the world.

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One of the workshops held, was a co-creation session with Russ Palmer and Riitta Lahtinen. The goal of this session was to create gamified scenarios that can foster social interaction. Typical every day scenarios were acted out in role-playing games to spark this brainstorming process.

Furthermore, various prototypes such as the “Follow Your Partner” gamified scenario were tested by Russ Palmer. His and Riitta Lahtinen’s invaluable feedback have given us new ideas to help enhance this prototype for further testing and studies that will be conducted in 2020.

Another session dealt with the adaptation of Social Haptic Signs towards SUITCEYES actuator-based haptic patterns, while our final workshop focused on incorporating situational feedback, deemed to be useful or even necessary, from a user’s perspective. The results of these exercises are currently being evaluated and analysed.

We thank Russ Palmer and Riitta Lahtinen who travelled to Offenburg to take part in these discussions and workshops. Their expertise helped us tremendously to learn more on the issues that individuals with deafblindness deal with every day. Their insights have sparked new ideas on topics such as haptic communication and navigation.

Finally, we would like to thank all the consortium partners for these constructive two days and we look forward to intensifying our collaboration efforts as the project heads into its final year!

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“Na Tak meetings” are a series of international conferences organized by the Na Tak Association and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Harpo was the strategic partner of the conference. This year the conference was attended by 252 persons. Among the guests of the conference were special educators, therapists, physiotherapists, carers and assistants of people with disabilities, as well as students, parents and volunteers.

As every year “Na Tak meeting” took under consideration issues of living with disability from many perspectives. Visitors of the conference could hear different lectures presented by academic lecturers, practicing therapists and physiotherapists, successfully working with people suffering from profound and multiple disabilities, who shared with the audience their knowledge, experience and working methods.

There was also an exhibition during the conference. The exhibitors presented specialised electronic devices and supporting technologies necessary for the therapy and education of people with different disabilities. Technologies dedicated to individuals with disabilities allow to take part in social life, increase independence and make everyday life easier. We hope that SUITCEYES will contribute to existing solutions and add them a whole new quality.

The SUITCEYES project was promoted by Harpo, at our design stand. We presented the poster and distributed promotional materials, and discussed the goals of the project with visitors. We also reported the progress and current stage of SUITCEYES. We had many visitors, who were very interested and curious to see final results of the project, and the product ready to use.

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The two-day conference was hosted by Eikholt, which is a National Resource Centre for the deafblind related issues and a living arena for synergies and competence development. The conference was attended by around 85 people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and England.

Many of the participants (both speakers and audience) were individuals with deafblindness. It was fun to see that many of the speakers had connection with SUITCEYES as members of the project advisory board (Thomas Ragnarsson (SPSM, Nkcdb), Henrik Hildemar (Mogård), Rolf Lund (Eikholt), and Linda Eriksson (Nkcdb)), there were also other project advisors among the audience.

The speakers, came from multiple expertise areas. The project members presented an overview of SUITCEYES as well as a short account of the recent developments within the project. The rest of the program was also packed with very interesting and inspiring talks about digital future (e.g., by Silvija Seres); congenital deafblindness and technology (by our advisers Thomas and Henrik); different technical support that is offered by national organizations; or recent technological solutions available and ways in which they can be adapted to individual needs (e.g., by Rolf Mjønes). Other speakers talked about personal experiences. For example, Molly Watts, a usability and accessibility consultant, or in her own words an “inclusive technology evangelist”, gave a most inspiring talk about different perspectives on deafblindness (both hers and others). A couple of points in her talk highlighted that to get along, she has to strategize everything she does, and that she did not want to use tools or aids that would be stigmatizing; she preferred assistive devices that look cool, and fashionable.

Many of the participants were housed in the comfortable accommodations located at Eikholt, therefore, this event provided plenty of opportunities for continued conversations, feedback and brainstorming on future collaborations. An important outcome of these discussions was the decision to organize participatory co-design workshops at Eikholt. In this way the SUITCEYES consortium could come together with end users (people with deafblindness, but also interpreters, professional care providers, family members, etc) and member of project advisory board in a sort of living lab for collaborative work on design decisions, pushing forward feature developments. These workshops are now planned to take place in week 14 of 2020. The event details are being planned and the whole SUITCEYES consortium is looking forward to this opportunity.

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Having created a prototype for the gamified scenario titled Follow Your Partner, designed to help individuals with deafblindness learn how to navigate with the vest, it was time to conduct a pilot study. The study, part of the SUITCEYES project, took place this November in Stuttgart and at Offenburg University with four individuals with deafblindness.

The Follow Your Partner scenario revolves around a fictional story involving two persons: the wearer of the vest (a deafblind individual) assuming the role of a special agent who is pursuing a suspect (sighted person). Over the course of the game the agent must keep an optimal distance to the suspect. Getting too close to or too far away from the suspect, in either case, results in a mission failure. Throughout the game the suspect can turn towards the agent. During this period the agent must not move until the suspect is facing away from the user where it is safe again for the agent to resume pursuing the suspect.

We have enhanced the prototype utilized for the Easter Egg hunt study by incorporating a fisheye camera used to detect objects with the help of computer vision software. In addition to the vibration motors placed at point-specific locations around the vest, we have included micro-servo motors which are placed on the front and back of the shoulders to create a tapping sensation. Our project partner from Borås University have kindly designed a one-size-fits-most vest for the purpose of the study. This piece of garment can be adjusted in size through a zipping mechanism on either side of the vest and includes small pouches that are sewn into the garment to place actuators inside. Furthermore, wires can be concealed by placing them in between the outer fabric and the lining of the garment.

The four individuals with deafblindness found the scenario thrilling and were surprised by how quickly they could understand the information provided to them through the vibrations and micro-servo motors. This week we have started examining the results of the study and are planning a larger study with deafblind individuals early next year.

We are now looking forward to the SUITCEYES consortium in December where members of the project will be making the trip to Offenburg. Over the two days we will have the chance to work together more closely in workshops and to discuss the next steps of the project.

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See the award here 2nd prize best paper award

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A Data Referencing Formalism for Information Exchange between Deafblind People and Databases [Author: Carlos Seror; Presented by: Carlos Seror]

Static and Dynamic Haptograms to Communicate Semantic Content [Authors: Sandor Daranyi, Nasrine Olson, Marina Riga, Efstratios Kontopoulos, and Ioannis Kompatsiaris; Presented by: Nasrine Olson]

A State of the Art Survey: Business Cases Based on Semantic Web Technologies in Healthcare [Authors: Vivi Ntrigkogia, Thanos G. Stavropoulos, Maro Vlachopoulou, and Ioannis Kompatsiaris; Presented by: Spyridon Symeonidis]

Knowledge-based Intelligence and Strategy Learning for Personalised Virtual Assistance in the Healthcare Domain [Authors: Eleni Kamateri, Georgios Meditskos, Spyridon Symeonidis, Stefanos Vrochidis, Ioannis Kompatsiaris, and Wolfgang Minker; Presented by: Spyridon Symeonidis]

The second paper, written by project members, presented the SUITCEYES ontology and the way in which a set of static and dynamic haptograms are designed to represent concepts for use in the haptic communication  interface which is being developed within SUITCEYES.

The full text of these papers are published in, and can be accessed via the conference proceedings.

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More than 70 participants attended the symposium. The day started with a brief introduction into the SUITCEYES project, given by Nasrine Olson. Director-General of the Swedish Agency for Participation Malin Ekman Aldén then took the stage to discuss national policies on participation, accessibility and inclusion, followed by Kas Nelfelt, Vice President of the World Federation of The Deafblind. The day continued with inspiring presentations by Carlo Geraci, Riitta Lahtinen and Russ Palmer, Cathrine Timm Sundin from Eikholt, Sophia Alexandersson from ShareMusic and members of the SUITCEYES consortium presenting aspects of their work. The day concluded with a presentation on EU funding and research for inclusion by Pawel Dobosz, and cultural engagement in the form of enthralling Japanese taiko music performed by Sweden Taiko.

A big thank you to all presenters and participants on a successful symposium!

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