Indra leads a european r&d project to support the social integration of people with dyslexia through the use of e-Learning

Indra leads the European R&D Literacy project (onLIne portal for E-learning and suppoRting sociAl inClusión people with dYslexia), which has the objective of developing an advanced online portal that assists people with dyslexia in learning new skills that will help improve their integration in society. The project, which is partially funded by the European Commission, forms part of the 7th Framework Programme's ICT area.

Dyslexia is a reading and writing learning disorder with a neurobiological origin and a persistent nature that appears in people who do not have physical, psychological or sociocultural handicaps. It affects nearly 10% of the population.

The new e-learning portal, which is expected to be completed in 2015, will offer specialised services with a high degree of visual content for young people and adults with dyslexia, and will also include personalised assistance technologies for each user. The learning materials will be designed and adapted by experts in this field from each of the countries involved. Through the use of explanatory videos and audio, the aim is for people with dyslexia to use the portal autonomously and improve their skills thanks to the various tools in order to address this unmet need of adults with the disorder.

Using assessment tools, the portal will allow determining the initial level of the affected individuals and their margin for improvement, as well as establishing the most appropriate e-learning tools for each case so users may advance in their education. It will also have an area for exchanging experiences so users may develop their social skills as much as possible in order to minimise integration barriers.

Indra, the coordinator of the project's international consortium and the main technological partner, will develop an innovative user interface equipped with assistance technologies, such as text to voice translators, as well as the various assessment and e-learning tools.

The portal will be available in four languages: English, Hungarian, Czech and Hebrew. In the mid-term, it is also expected to be rolled out in Spanish and German, and in the long term it will include all European languages.

Aside from Indra, six entities specialised in the fields involved form part of the Literacy project's consortium: the companies B&M InterNets (Czech Republic) and AnimaScan (Israel), the University of Vienna (Austria), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - Psychology Institute, the Centre for Educational Technology (Israel), and the Pedagogical and Psychological Counselling Centre Brno (Czech Republic).

Commitment to innovation and accessible technologies

This project confirms Indra's commitment to developing innovative solutions and services that minimise the digital divide and facilitate social and occupational integration as part of its corporate responsibility. The company has already completed more than 40 R&D&i projects in this field and it has created nine research chairs for accessible technologies in collaboration with the Adecco Foundation and a number of Spanish universities. The company also collaborates with other institutions towards the same objective, including the Rafael del Pino Foundation and the Toledo National Paraplegic Hospital Foundation.

Indra is one of the world's largest consultancy and technology multinationals, a leader in Europe and Latin America and is expanding in other emerging economies. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business, which is highly focussed on the customer and on sustainability. The multinational is one of the leaders in its sector in Europe in terms of investment in R&D and innovation, having invested more than €550M in the last three years. With sales approaching €3,000 million, it employs 42,000 professional and has customers in 128 countries.