One month to raise awareness on themes of inclusion and the enhancement of diversity.
The second edition of 4 Weeks 4 Inclusion*, the inter-company event dedicated to inclusion, starts tomorrow and will end exactly one month later, on 22 November. This year, more than 200 companies are involved in the event to promote the themes of diversity and inclusion, with a rich programme of online proposals.A true marathon of conferences and workshops for which registration and remote attendance are available, starting from the Opening Day which will be streamed.IIT is taking part in the programme by organising the meeting ‘MultiAbility Game: breaking down barriers with multisensory gaming’ which will be held on 11 November at 5.30 pm. The event, which will be in English, Italian and sign language, focuses on multisensoriality as a tool for inclusion. For over 10 years, IIT’s U-Vip – Unit for Visually Impaired People – research team, coordinated by Monica Gori, winner of an award from the European Research Council for the MYSpace project, has been studying how different sensorial modes interact and are combined in children with and without disabilities, with the ultimate objective of developing inclusive and rehabilitative systems. When we relate to the environment, visual, auditory and tactile information work together to enhance our perception and activity. During the conference, multisensorial activities using sight and sound will be proposed so that children and adults with normal sight and hearing, along with visually or hearing-impaired individuals, can take part in the same game together. The result will be a collaborative game in which the senses work together to support each other, demonstrating that multisensorial activities can break down barriers in a natural form of inclusion.Male and female IIT researchers will also be the guests at two other events: on 27 October at 6 pm, ‘Stories of women, Science and life’, a panel promoted by Gruppo Pragma and DIDAEL KTS together with Associazione Donne e Tecnologie (Association for Women and Technology) that will feature Camilla Coletti, Head of the 2D Materials Engineering lab at IIT and coordinator of the IIT centre in Pisa and the Graphene Labs, together with Ottavia Bettucci, Postdoc at the Tissue Electronics Lab at IIT’s Naples site, co-founder of the Bryla start-up project. They will table discussions with researchers from the AREA Science Park in Trieste, and entrepreneurs Gianna Martinengo, president of DIDAEL KTS and Maria Rita Fiasco, president of Gruppo Pragma, on overcoming the gender gap in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) area as a cultural and social challenge for equal opportunities, equity and women’s participation in the economy and society.Lastly, on 8 November at 9.30 am, there will be the meeting ‘Neurodiversità: valore aggiunto per l’azienda’ (Neurodiversity: added value for the company), organised by RINA, in which IIT researchers Giacinto Barresi and Davide Ghiglino, together with Andrea Snaidero from RINA and Federica Floris from Opera Don Orione Genova, will discuss how neurodiversity and intellectual disabilities can be included and enhanced within complex corporate organisations, focusing on the ergonomics of inclusion and the technology involved in inclusion at work.*4 Weeks 4 Inclusion (#4W4I) is a project devised by companies to increase awareness on the issues of inclusion and the enhancement of diversity, by means of a packed programme of shared events, webinars, digital labs and creative groups. Every year, guests and speakers take turns for four consecutive weeks, creating a choral narrative of stories of inclusion and sharing best practices, models and tools to enhance all forms of diversity: from disability to intergenerational contrasts, including the enhancement of women’s contributions, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity and religion.
