Indra leads an R&D project to create smart laboral environments for the integration of people with disabilities

Indra, the premier IT company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe, is at the head of the AZTECA project which aims at researching and developing new technologies to create a smart work environment to thoroughly assist people with visual, audition and mobility impairments in office work in order to facilitate their integration in the labour market.

The project, financed by the CDTI (Centre for Technological and Industrial Development), amounts to € 2.8 m and has an execution period of two years. The pilot is expected to be fully operative after the necessary adjustments.
Besides Indra, coordinator of the project from its Software Lab in Salamanca, the consortium consists of CSA (Centro de Servicios Avanzados), Wtelecom, the research teams of the BISITE Group of the University of Salamanca and the School of Computer Science of the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

The solution will collect information about the user in order to customise advanced services of location, mobility, communication, training and interaction through different devices. The objective is to create a smart labour environment with the aid of technology in order to enhance the daily and professional life of people with impairments.

In order to achieve this, AZTECA first proposes mechanisms to obtain information about the user and his/her behaviour in a transparent and ubiquitous way using non-intrusive sensors. By collecting all this information in a proactive way, the different services will be customised to meet his/her needs and characteristics in a dynamic way.

The project includes multimode interaction services by means of different devices (pc, mobile phones, television, etc), services for note taking, quick writing, one-key text entry, voice recognition and voice synthesis or the development of peripheral devices to aid people with impairments in their office work. It also envisages the development of tools and services to facilitate communication, location, identification, learning and virtualization of the workplace for this sector.

Integration of Accessible Technologies
Some of the services to be provided by AZTECA are based on solutions developed by the Chairs of Investigation on Accessible Technologies. The Chairs, which benefit from extant synergies,   were created by Indra in cooperation with Adecco Foundation and different universities. Among these solutions we should mention HeadMouse and VirtualKeyBoard, a free virtual mouse and keyboard respectively conceived for people with mobility impairments; and GANAS, a virtual sign language interpreter which translates written text into Spanish sign language.

The different components are arranged using a multi agent system based on virtual organisations and will manage the services connected via AZTECA in an efficient way.

More autonomy at the workplace
The future solution will offer a set of tools which will assist people with impairments in their professional life, thus enhancing their autonomy and professional capacities. It could also be employed by companies to facilitate integration of this sector in compliance with the current legislation.
This technology will not only benefit people with impairments but also people whose capacity to work is affected temporarily, for instance, a person recovering from an injury, illness or accident.

On the other hand, the information collected during the monitorisation of certain parameters of the daily life of people with impairments will provide insight of the behaviour and needs of this sector in the office work field for further studies. 

The AZTECA project is a new example of Indra's commitment to Accessible Technologies (www.tecnologíasaccesibles.com). Created as part of the company's Corporate Responsibility strategy, the accessible technologies seek to develop avant-garde solutions and services to facilitate access to technology as well as social and labour integration for people with impairments. Indra has already developed over 30 R&D+i projects in this field and has created five investigation chairs in cooperation with the Adecco Foundation and different universities.

Indra in Salamanca
Indra created in 2007 its software Lab in Salamanca, located at the Scientific Park of the University of Salamanca. In less than four years the centre grew from 25 professionals to 106, over 70% of them graduated from the University of Salamanca (USAL) and from the Pontifical University (UPSA). 
Among the main current projects, we should mention the smart systems of traffic control and automatic electronic collection (Free-Flow) of the Bbicentennial Viaduct in Mexico; the thorough integration of the administrative procedures of the Investment and Service Agency of Castilla y León; the technological maintenance, organisation, management and exploitation of the information and processing of the Housing Department of Castilla y Leon.

Besides the Software Lab in Salamanca, since 2005 Indra has consolidated its presence and its commitment to technological development in Castilla y Leon. For instance, it inaugurated in Valladolid the Development Centre at the Technology Park El Boecillo, started up the Centre of Excellence for Security Systems (CES) in Leon and a Computer Incident Response Center. All this has translated into over 300 highly-qualified work positions in the area.

Indra
Indra is the premier Information Technology company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe and Latin America. It is ranked as the second European company in its sector according to investment in R&D with nearly € 500 M during the last three years. In 2010 revenues reached € 2,557 M of which a 40% came from the international market. The company employs more than 31,000 professionals and has clients in more than 110 countries.