Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (IICT)

Breaking down communication barriers for better social inclusion

The Swiss Agency for the Promotion of Innovation (Innosuisse) has approved a major four-year project (total volume of 12.4 million Swiss francs) titled “Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies” (IICT), as part of its new “Flagship” initiative. The objective of this project is to develop information and communication technologies (ICT) for people with disabilities. This “Flagship” targets five specific accessibility areas: text simplification, sign language translation and evaluation, automatic audio description, and spoken subtitles. Within this “Flagship”, each area is divided into sub-projects, with close links between them, thanks to common technologies such as artificial intelligence. IICT, with its user-centered approach, will lead to innovations that will help people with hearing, visual, and cognitive impairments, as well as sign language learners, thus highlighting the bidirectional aspect of accessibility. This “Flagship” follows a participatory and inclusive approach by involving people with disabilities at all stages of the research and development cycle. This Flagship is led by the Institute of Computational Linguistics at the University of Zurich (PI: Dr. Sarah Ebling). It consists of five research partners, including one foreign partner as a subcontractor, as well as six exploitation partners. Together, the partners of this “Flagship” are among the most important players in the field of inclusive ICT in Switzerland. The Flagship will start in 2022.

 

Innosuisse Flagship PFFS-21-47

Research Partners:

  • University of Zurich, Institute of Computational Linguistics
  • ICARE Research Institute
  • Idiap Research Institute
  • Intercantonal University of Applied Sciences in Special Needs Education (HfH)
  • Subcontractor: University of Surrey, UK

Exploitation Partners:

  • SWISS TXT, also representing the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) and its radio and television stations
  • CFS GmbH (“capito”), Austria
  • Swiss Federation of the Deaf (SGB-FSS)
  • Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA)
  • Federal Office for the Equality of Persons with Disabilities (FODE)
  • Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss)
  • Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH)
  • Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO)
  • Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP)
  • Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport
  • Federal Office for Civil Protection FOCP
  • Zurich Insurance Company Ltd

 

 

October 2023

1st Consortium Meeting 2023

The consortium for the Innosuisse IICT Flagship met from February 1st to 3rd at IDAIP. It brought together all partners for a day of reporting and sharing of work carried out since the project began in March 2022. This event, held in a hybrid format (in-person and remote), gathered over 60 participants, representing the various partners of this national-scale project: Together, we develop digital solutions for people with disabilities. This includes language simplification, sign language translations, and audio description.

October 2022

Consortium Meeting 2022

The consortium for the Innosuisse IICT Flagship met on September 20, 2022, at the Swiss Digital Center in Sierre. It brought together all partners for a day of reporting and sharing of work carried out since the project began in March 2022. This event, held in a hybrid format (in-person and remote), gathered over 60 participants, representing the various partners of this national-scale project: Together, we develop digital solutions for people with disabilities. This includes language simplification, sign language translations, and audio description.

November 2021

Over 12 million francs to make information and communication technologies more inclusive

Providing access to information for people with disabilities is a technological challenge in an era of multiplying communication channels. An international consortium combining researchers, public and private partners, led by the University of Zurich and including the Idiap Research Institute and Icare in French-speaking Switzerland, has just received nearly 6 million francs in support from Innosuisse, supplemented by 6 million from private partners, to address this challenge. Access to simplified text, having a translation or evaluation in sign language, listening to an audio description – these are all essential tools for many people. Despite the proliferation of communication channels, including people with disabilities remains a challenge. This is why this project brings together several excellent partners, such as the University of Zurich, the University of Teacher Education in Special Needs, and, in French-speaking Switzerland, the Idiap Research Institute and the Icare Research Institute.

Complementary Expertise

“At Idiap, we specialize not only in spoken language processing but also in sign language. In this project, these two areas of expertise will be used to develop sign language evaluation applications within online learning methods and audio descriptions,” explains Mathew Magimai-Doss, senior researcher in the speech processing research group. “With machine learning tools, for example, we could use a more direct approach to simplify texts for people with intellectual disabilities. Currently, text simplification processes involve many complex iterative rules,” adds Julien Torrent, Innovation Manager at the Icare Research Institute. Beyond scientific research, the goal is to develop tools that can be used transversally across multiple platforms and meet different needs. Applications range from information related to natural hazards to access to official documents. To achieve this, it is necessary, for example, to be able to simplify a text to make it understandable while retaining its meaning, or to create a subtitle or audio description of images. These are all scientific and technical challenges. Public and private partners to implement technologies. Far from being limited to academic research, the project includes several partners who will be responsible for the practical implementation of the developed technologies. In collaboration with the Swiss Federation of the Deaf, several federal actors will be involved, including the Federal Office for the Equality of Persons with Disabilities, Swiss TXT (in connection with SRG SSR), the Federal Social Insurance Office, the Federal Office of Public Health, the Federal Office for Civil Protection, and MeteoSwiss. The private insurer Zurich and the Austrian company Capito, which produces simplified versions of texts, are also associated with the project. The goal? To be able to communicate vital information to people with disabilities. The project will start in 2022 and is planned to last 4 years under the aegis of Innosuisse’s new Flagship initiative, which aims to support systemic innovation. It is one of the projects selected following the first call in January 2021. The Icare Research Institute, based at TechnoArk in Sierre (Valais – Switzerland). Its expertise and research focus on object identification, computer vision and machine learning. These innovations are integrated into mobile devices capable of communicating and interacting with multiple value-added services available in the cloud. The Icare research institute was created in 1991, on the initiative of the School of Computer Science in Sierre. Constituted as an association, its members, represented on the committee, include the State of Valais, Sierre Région, the municipality of Sierre, and HES-SO Valais-Wallis. The Idiap Research Institute has been one of the world’s specialists in artificial intelligence for 30 years. Speech and visual recognition, human-machine interaction, robotics, and language analysis are some of the Institute’s areas of expertise. Based in Martigny, Valais, the institute is involved in local, national, and international projects. The non-profit Idiap Foundation was created in 1991 by the City of Martigny, the State of Valais, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, the University of Geneva, and Swisscom.

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