Kick off meeting of HANDS - so interesting, so joyfull

While we were planning the kick off we were excited. We were working a lot, mailing, planning and talking. This meeting could be the end of HANDS if we failed. But the meeting did not fail. In opposite. The meeting was exciting, informative and highly valuable. And not to forget: fun.

Afterwards I asked a couple of meeting participants to mail me their experience.

Director of IT-Vest and ICT-ethics expert, Thomas Ploug, Aalborg University/Copenhagen mailed me(30-06-2008 21:34)

"Thanks very much for the kick-off seminar in Aalborg.

I always find it most inspiring and stimulating to be among people with different fields of expertise. It is, however, also challenging when succesful, inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration is required. Arriving in Aalborg I was thus filled with equal excitement and worries. I am happy to say now – upon the completion of the seminar – that my worries turned out to be unfounded. The seminar showed, I think, great courtesy, enthusiasm and true dedication among the participants – which I find most promising for the time to come.

Being involved with the Ethics Board I benefitted quite a lot from the many presentations that directly or indirectly added to my understanding of the psychology, thinking, habits etc. of people with autism. It is exactly those particular traits of autists that deepens and accentuates the ethical questions and problems already evident.

With great expectations and high hopes for the remaining time of the HANDS-project."

Thomas Ploug

Ildiko Kanizsai-Nagy, psychologist from Autism Foundation/Hungary mailed me(03-07-2008 22:53):

I was asked by Morten to give a personal „blog-account” on our excellent kick-off meeting in June. Here are some comments.

Before travelling to Slettestrand our hope - at the Autism Foundation and ELTE University - was that we would have the possibily to clarify our questions on the HANDS project. These were for example the division of tasks between partners, especially with London Southbank University or the software solutions. We also wanted to know if the partners have the same or at least similar educational, scentific and methdolocigal base and background regarding to autism spectrum disorders. We also had some queries on our own presentation: would it be approriate, useful and intelligible for our partners in HANDS project.

Lots of our doubts disappeared when we heard the presentation of collegues from Svedenskolan. Not only the methods and tools they use in education of their students, but the attitude and enthusiasm they represented was very prepossesing. At that time me, and I am sure also my collegues felt that we definetly would be able to find the common language.

The Testschools meeting gave us a great opportunity to discuss the scientific needs and aspects of our research. We hope we could clarify the main points of testing and evaluation and now we are working on refining the selecting criteria. We were also happy to hear positive feed-backs about our presentation.

Personally for me the software side of the project was a “gray area”. I did benefit a lot from the presentation of collegues from Wirtek Rumenia, now I know a bit more how we should think on the software design of HANDS.

Above this I was really impressed during the whole meeting how keenly and actively people discusses all the issues.

It was also important for me to develop personal reletionships with collegues we work together. Thanks to Morten excellent idea of mixing different people from differents partners during the dinner in the beautiful restaurant at the seaside, we had unique chance to get to know each other better. No doubt that the high spot of the performance was the chorus singing "The Abstract Song"...

And - although I know it is not a scientific aspect – we really-really enyojed the marvellous nature of Demnark, the sea, the wind, and also the food.

All together I can say – I guess in the name of my collegues in Budapest – that we all had a great and useful time in Slettestrand. And although we still have lots of things to discuss and work on I am sure now we have the common track to go along.

Ildiko Kanizsai-Nagy"

Softwarearchitect, Ghita Pop(he is male) from Wirtek Romania mailed me(25-06-2008 08:31):
"It’s my pleasure to say that from my point of view was a great experience since I have been participated for the first time to such kick off meeting.

I learned a lot off thinks about how the meetings are organized and also about talking with other people from other country that share the same ideas and have so much enthusiasm to work together for a commune goal.

Regarding the benefit, I think the visit to Egebakken School, was very important for us because we saw a lot of methods used by teachers in their working days, that can be developed in the Hands Tool. I was moved since I didn’t knew very much about autism disabilities and I’m very glad and enthusiast to be in the team that will accomplish the dream of creating a Tool that help a lot teachers in their dedicated work.

Alex shares the same thoughts about the experience and benefit.

I look forward to start our part in this long process."

Ghita Pop

I share Thomas, Ildiko and Ghitas experience: it was the best outcome of the meeting we could dream of. Good atmosphere, very nice people and stimulating talks.

Thanks to everyone. Thanks.

Morten

Downloads:

• High-quality photo of the participants of the kick off meeting
• HANDS songbook version 0.9