Emplea-T Accesible is associated to the “Aquí hay trabajo”, TV programme on La and it facilitates the search for job offers for the visually impaired
The project has been developed within the framework of the investigations by the Accesible Technology Chair of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Indra and the Adecco Foundation
RTVE started broadcasting the first interactive application to facilitate access to visually impaired people to Terrestrial Digital Television TDT services. Emplea-T Accesible is a customisation of Emplea-T oriented to this sector of the population. Emplea-T is a tool in the MHP standard (Multimedia Home Platform) designed to search for employment and has been associated to the "Aquí hay trabajo", programme of TVEs La 2 for two years.
The project has been developed within the framework of the investigations carried out by the Accessible Technology Chair of the Telecommunications faculty of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Indra and Adecco Foundation.
Emplea-T Accesible will be available for public consultation until Wednesday, December 10th. It is a major breakthrough since for the first time in Spain visually impaired people will be provided with a tool that facilitates access to TDT interactive services and therefore to employment.
This version incorporates two functions: images and voice over. The visual enhancements are oriented to people with partial blindness or different degrees of colour blindness with the menu font supporting size increase, conversion to capital letters in some of the application prompts as well as colour and background change for more contrast.
The voice over feature is entended for blind people to be guided in their search of employment and is activated when highlighting on the menu options (sector, autonomous region, education etc). It also includes a welcome message in both modes, normal and accessible, instructions to switch to the accessible mode and how to use the application as well as a reading of the different menus along with highlighting the options. Currently a second project is under development and it focuses on specifications, prototyping and manufacture of a digital television sensor accessible to the disable in general.
Emplea-T was designed and implemented by Indra in cooperation with RTVE and Inem and was launched in 2006 in association with “Aqui hay trabajao”, a TV programme of La 2 of TVE. This application in MHP standard currently enables the consult of 1500 job positions on a daily basis which are provided by the databasis of Inem and of other relevant autonomous organs.
During the broadcast of “Aquí hay trabajo” and from 8:00 to 13:00 on weekdays, the spectator can access Emplea-T’s services through an interactive and easy-to-use MHP decoder. Once the application is running, the basic search menu opens. The user should fill in at least one of the three requested fields: sector, autonomous region or education. The system searches among the published job vacancies also allowing request of additional information via interactive channels such as texting, toll-free numbers or using the MHP decoder connected to the user’s landline. In the case of the decoder, the additional information will be shown on the TV screen.
Indra’s Accesible Technologies Chairs
Indra founded Indra’s Accesible Technology Chairs in 2007 along with the Adecco Foundation and the Universities of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and Lleida (UDLA) and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). It aims at making information technologies accessible to social groups which are not fully integrated in the labour market by collaborating with knowledge institutions in the development of accessibility solutions.
The cooperation includes the definition of research lines and the execution of projects with Indra’s financial support. The Chair also promotes university degrees, engineering training and other activities concerned with knowledge dissemination in the field.
One of the main projects in this field is Headmouse, a solution developed by the University of Lleida and that consists of a low cost alternative interaction mechanism for people who suffer from reduced mobility and cannot use a mouse or a common keyboard. Headmouse is available and can be downloaded for free. From: http://headmouse.softonic.com/; http://robotica.udl.cat/.
UPM Chairs
The University-company chairs are an effective way of achieving a stable cooperation in R+D+i between the University and public or private institutions. The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid who houses 74 chairs, strongly promotes them since instead of focusing on a specific project, the chairs imply a mid-to-long-term cooperation and include projects that deal with generation and transfer of scientific and technological knowledge.
Indra is Spain’s first IT multinational and one of Europe and Latin America’s most important. It is the second European company in its sector according to stock market capitalisation and it is also the second Spanish company with more investment in R+D. In 2007, revenues exceeded € 2,167M; a third part of it came from the international market. The company employs more than 24,000 professionals and has developed projects in more than 90 countries.
The Foundation was created in July, 1999 and is the product of Adecco’s social responsibility as a world leader of human resources management. Its main objective is the integration of people in the labour market, who due to individual characteristics find more obstacles in their search for employment