Problem Statement

Persons with autism can face great challenges navigating the workforce. Global statistics have shown that less than 20% of them are gainfully employed.

Solution

The project aims to enhance the employability of persons with mild autism through the development of a Virtual Mentor that will help them build their confidence, understand communication behaviours, and provide communication and speech content improvements.

•  Confidence Building

The Virtual Mentor will have the ability to extract relevant topics from a user’s profile to start a conversation that is relatable. Through continuous interaction with the bot, persons with autism will begin to feel more comfortable engaging in conversations, resulting in greater confidence.

•  Behaviour Analyser

Audio and video analytics gathered through their interaction will allow the Virtual Mentor to provide recommendations that can improve a user’s body language and tone in speech.

•  Content Evaluator

Through their conversation, the Virtual Mentor will analyse a user’s reply, compliment areas of good response techniques and content, provide feedback, and recommend sentiment, word choice and speech content improvements.

•  Workplace Simulator

The Virtual Mentor will be able to simulate work activities, introduce abrupt communication and job tasks that will help train and prepare the user.

Outcomes

Through the use of Augmented and Virtual Reality, the employability of persons with mild autism is enhanced through work simulations, behaviour and speech trainings.