The EU application has been accepted!!!

February 14th the danish research and innovation department(Forsknings og Innovationsstyrelsen), that they donated 10.000 euros for the preproject for HANDS. Money which should be spent on visiting potential HANDS partners around Europe, get help writing the application and time to write the proposal. The deadline for the submission of the application is May 8th.

In the first moment I was screaming and yelling. I thought, that the real application was accepted. In the moments after, I read the letter from danish research and innovation department again and tried to figure out, what the letter actually was about. At that moments all my worries started: I know nothing about EU-applications it is probably complicated, do I have what is neeed? Do I have access to the right resources? Do I have insight?

I could not answer any of my own questions. Never the less my next set of thoughts was: the core ideas of HANDS is right: Open Source, Persuasive Technology and customised software.
I will probably not find simular research projects in Europe.

The foundation is right.

Morten

Participation in the Autismconference "MeetingofMinds2" in Herning February 8th to10th

February 8th to 10th I participated int my first international scientific conference about autism. MeetingofMinds2 in Herning. A conference with participants from 20 european contries, USA, Israel and South Corea. The issues on the conferences was diagnosis', treatments and experiences with individuals with ASD(Autism Spectrum Disorder). This years theme was "intersubjectivity":

It was highly interesting and a very positive experience and I received a lot of positive feedback on my work.


I participated in the conference, because Professor Francisco Pons(psychology professor at AAU) and invited me and I had a need for finding partners to my EU project.

Beforehand I was asked to submit a abstract to the conference scientific Commitee. They found it so interesting, that it was acccepted and I was invited to participate with a poster.
I elaborated to posters. One about the project that Egebakken and I was designing and one about the HANDS manifest. Furthermore I wrote and designed to brochures(HANDS the manifest and Autonomy). Finally I prepared a maillinglist.

The conference was dominated by psychologists and practioners within the field and the talks and debates was interesting but naturally held at a much higher level that I could participate in. I did all what I could to keep up the pace. I understood that the number of diagnosis' of autism still increase and the diagnosis still is discussed. I did all I could to understand this extremely complicated phenoma.

In moments some talks seeemed to me as very very trivial. E.g. did one of the hot shots, Professor Paul Harris, Havard University, who is working with issues ranging from EQ to IQ, point out, that his empirical studies showed, that children and teenagers suffering from ASD seemed to have little EQ, but seemed to have almost normal IQ. At least, that was what I understood of Paul Harris talk. The focus was like many other talks on details in diagnoses rather than what is my interest, treatment of the children with autism.

Luckily where quite a few of the conferenceparticipants having the same attitude and I and lots of interesting and valuable talks with teachers, caretakers and parents about new treatments and about HANDS.

The central points in my posters was

• ICT solutions should be adapted to the single individual
• ICT solutions should be present when problems arise.
  

Many understood and agreed with me. I experienced, that I had a set of unique ideas and values, that where well received by the visitors of the conference. Many danes signed up on my maillinglist. And I got in touch in a relevant international persons representing institutions, which could be valuable partners in a EU project: Hungary, Sweden, London and Sheffield.