The mission of La Salle Campus Barcelona, founding member of the Universitat Ramon Llull, is to educate people with values that contribute to the construction of a better world, and one of the tools to achieve this is to put research and the transfer of knowledge at the service of society. With this purpose, DiVinTech was born, a project led by Human Environment Research (HER), one of the research groups on campus.
DiVinTech is in the news for having participated in the event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Autism Confederation of Spain. It was through NAO, a robot that helps improve the linguistic and communicative skills of autistic students, and was presented by David Fonseca, a professor on campus and researcher in the HER group. The commemoration event took place at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and was attended by Queen Sofia, who served as honorary president, and by professionals, experts, entities, people with autism and their families, who provided testimonies and experiences about autism in Spain.
DiVinTech, technology at the service of people
The DiVinTech project, promoted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and supported by the mission of La Salle Campus Barcelona, originates from the specific orientation to solve a specific problem linked to the thematic priority of ‘Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society’. In this sense, and from a multidisciplinary perspective at the intersection of the thematic areas of Educational Sciences, Psychology and ICT, it seeks to improve social inclusion, especially in the educational and family settings, of students affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), through the design, implementation, evaluation and scalability of STEAM activities (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) in specially designed spaces.
There is a growing problem in Spain, where there is an increasing number of children affected by some form of diversity gap. The DivInTech project is committed to addressing this growing problem with the aim of improving the skills and social inclusion of students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). The methodology is based on STEAM action-research, using educational robotics as a tool adapted to the different profiles of students.