The eighth public meeting of the Strategic Planning Council’s Disability Working Group was held in a virtual setting. On this occasion, Dario Michener, Director of the Information and Communication Technology Department, participated. Marcello Ranzoni, in charge of the Empatizando space and teacher of ICT, students of the ORT School in Belgrano; To learn how they work in social and technology projects in order to help people with different disabilities. “We at ICT, at the ORT School, work with a methodology based on project-based learning, and within that learning we have a space that we call empathy. In it, our goals should relate to two lines of action: one, essentially, to make our students aware of different situations , different realities; and on the other hand, this work that we do in the space allows us to motivate and inspire them in the development of projects, those whose aim is to break down the barriers proposed by society in certain situations”, explained Ranzoni, as an introduction. . Professor Marcello Ranzoni continued: “During the year we carry out various activities and meetings to raise awareness and social responsibility and invite different organizations to advise on ideas and accompany them in the development and testing of projects in relevant places.” A reference to the educational process of the initiative.

Reinforcing these concepts, Dario Michener said, “All of our major students who develop projects with social impact, do so by their own decision, by conviction, not by commitment. They can develop projects to learn to work through projects, integrate techniques and show that they know the contents of Curriculum for a project of their own interest, or for a project of commercial importance, or to provide a solution for an internal client within the school. Or external. For us, the motivation that leads students to develop their products and drive learning is very important.” Emphasizing these initiatives, he emphasized that many projects have more than ten thousand downloads in various Spanish-speaking countries, from Spain to the entire American continent, which is a real pride for the institution and teachers, and that these projects go so far beyond the lab that they stop. To be systematic projects to meet the demand of the teacher and become projects of interest to students to positively affect the quality of people’s lives.

Then the teachers introduced the 4th and 5th year entrepreneurs. Each team had a space to present the topic of their project, how the idea arose and how they implemented the design and solution to a particular problem. The innovative projects submitted were as follows: 1) “Basket on Wheels”, a solidarity project for the dissemination of information about modified basketball. 2) YouDetect, an assistive system for the blind, based on two technologies: opening doors and glasses capable of detecting objects above the eye; 3) Foraü, a space for networking and structured meeting around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); 4) Lecto, a text editor like Word, for people with dyslexia. This app has more than 10,000 different users from 35 countries. Since the beginning of development, they have received support from Microsoft and the non-governmental organization Disfam. In 2020, they won two Sadosky Awards, sponsored by the Argentine Chamber of Software and recognized by the prestigious Varkey Foundation.

After the question round and farewell to the guests, the organizations continued to develop the agenda for the day with topics to work on. There were several interesting proposals for discussion in the coming months.

It was reported that as part of the Urban Environmental Plan update, contributions to the Ribera del Río de la Plata and Avenida Paz public sector plans were submitted to the Permanent Participatory Forum, in order to hear contributions and feedback. In the same way, the Eighth Workshop of the Participatory Strategic Plan for Economic Development and Social Innovation BA 2035 was held, where what was produced was reviewed and new proposals were incorporated regarding actions and projects. Regarding the evaluation and monitoring of PEPBA 2035, at the last workshop it was decided which steps to follow in 2022 and a document with a methodology to be presented at the year-end meeting.

A representative of the Working Group on the Regulations Committee commented that at the Executive Committee meeting corresponding to the current month, it would be proposed that the disability group become yet to be.