3D Community, social housing built with 3D printers

Publications Bank of innovations

3D Community, social housing built with 3D printers

New Story, ICON, Échale

Two kids in front of one of the houses built in Mexico. Retrieved from New Story’s website.

3D-built housing, which enables high-quality housing parks to be generated and in a much faster and more affordable way than with traditional construction options.

The first housing park with this technology has been built in Tabasco, Mexico, and consists of 50 houses. The houses are made with the collaboration of ICON, a construction technology company. Thanks to its 3D Vulcan printer, which uses a cement mix called Lavacrete, it can build secure and durable constructions with very little time, as 3D printers can work uninterruptedly for 24 hours, until completion of construction. End touches, such as roofs or windows, are added in the traditional way, employing local builders.

Families living in these early Mexican dwellings previously participated in the process of designing their home, bringing their vision of their own needs and what they thought important to have at home. These families were selected through interviews and surveys in the area, to identify those with the greatest need. The houses have a social mortgage of about 400 pesos per month, a mortgage that does not return to New Story, the sponsoring organization, but rather to a Community fund from which families will be able to dispose in the future to invest in this community. In this way, it not only innovates in the way it is built, but also creates a community of owners that empowers the people who are part of it.

New Story

OKencasa, support for non-professional carers

Publications Bank of innovations

OKencasa, support for non-professional carers

OKencasa

Woman taking care of a dependent elderly man. Retrieved from OKencasa website.

Platform for the support aimed at non-professional carers caring a relative dependent at home. Through the Zaindoo app it offers permanent accompaniment from a care specialist, online training, tools for organizing care tasks, and discounts or advantages in services of physiotherapy, legal advice, home adaptation, etc. The aim is to improve the quality of life of the carers and to make their job easier, that is to say to look after the carers.

OKencasa periodically evaluates the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of the care-givers and, accordingly, offers them a personal plan of improvement and support that can be readjusted in time. The professionals in the service ensure that the caregiver is always accompanied and listened to with regard to the burden of their care tasks.

OKencasa also provides information to public social services so that they can provide better support for families and provide more efficient socio-sanitary care. The application is currently available in Euskera and Spanish.

OKencasa

DigiContact, remote and immediate social care service available 24h

Publications Bank of innovations

DigiContact, remote and immediate social care service available 24h

DigiContact

DigiContact worker attending a client. Retrieved from the DigiContact website

Remote and immediate 24h care service for people with long-term care needs: disabled people, elderly people with dependency, people with mental health problems or addictions, etc. The service allows extra respite and support to these people’s non-professional carers, avoiding their saturation, and also offers them support if needed. Users can enrol in the service either individually or through social entities. The service adapts to the needs of each user (for example, calling to remind him of a medication, wake him up in the morning, etc.) according to what is established at the time of contracting the service; and, depending on the needs of the person, DigiContact complements online care with presence visits.

DigiContact works through an app that is very easy to use: only by pressing a button it does the call (with image) to be able to receive remote support and attention. The camera is located in the middle of the screen, making it easier to have a sense of proximity and making it possible for professionals to read the verbal and nonverbal signals of the user.

Professionals working in DigiContact (psychologists, nurses, social workers…) have a specialized training to meet all kinds of needs users can have online.

The DigiContact service has proved especially useful during the lockdown times of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is currently a service only available in Dutch.

DigiContact

Kuvu, intergenerational rent to fight the loneliness and precariousness of elderly people and youngsters

Publications Bank of innovations

Kuvu, intergenerational rent to fight the loneliness and precariousness of elderly people and youngsters

Kuvu

Intergenerational cohabitation thanks to Kuvu

Platform that brings into contact people older than 55 who have a free room, with young people seeking rent at affordable prices. In this way, these elderly people earn an income and stop living alone; while young people who want to become independent and do not have the means to do so, or prefer to do so in a calm and familiar environment, can achieve it for an affordable price.

Unlike other European models, where accommodation is free for the young in exchange for care activities, the Kuvu model involves an economic transaction and places those involved in a relationship of equal conditions and responsibilities, since these are two self-employed people who simply seek company and share day-to-day. Kuvu seeks to generate cohabitation and accompanying relationships, as would two roommates. Both people may have an independent life, but share some moments of the day with the other person. There is no set number of hours for participants to spend together, because the relationship is hoped to occur naturally.

In order to ensure that coexistence will be viable, at the time of registering on the platform, a form must be filled with information about living habits, so that Kuvu can pair the people who are most compatible for living together. In addition, Kuvu makes a personal follow-up to the experiences it generates to try to make them as successful as possible.

Kuvu

Raaji, chatbot to inform and empower girls and women

Publications Bank of innovations

Raaji, chatbot to inform and empower girls and women

Aurat Raaj

Girls using the chat-bot Raaji. Retrieved from Aurat Raaj’s website.

Chat-bot that informs girls and women about gender issues and helps them empower and defend their rights. It uses a virtual character, Raaji, which is able to answer questions and have a conversation through artificial intelligence algorithms. It provides information on issues considered taboo which are of great importance to female empowerment, such as issues of reproductive health, security or economic autonomy. In addition, a team of professionals detects if there are cases that require professional intervention and are derived from them to the most appropriate services.

The Pakistani organization that has developed it, Aurat Raaj, also collaborates with schools and social organizations to make workshops and activities to empower women and girls, and to try to break some stigma surrounding topics such as menstrual hygiene. To further expand this task, they have created an animated series where the main character, Raaji, passes through different situations considered taboo but which are part of the day-to-day life of many girls. In this way, girls see themselves in a character that they identify with, who normalizes and overcomes these situations, encouraging them to take the initiative through activities such as training courses, personal defence, etc.

Chat-bot is a versatile tool available in English and Urdu, and has also been adapted to Covid-19 to provide reliable information about the disease for girls and boys, in an easy way. Raaji is a sample of how technology can help expand and take the work of social organisations further, creating a tool that is easy to access and which allows the easy and private reporting of issues of great importance and on which there are taboos or misinformation.

Aurat Raaj

Hero Arm, an affordable bionic arm made with 3D Printing

Publications Bank of innovations

Hero Arm, an affordable bionic arm made with 3D Printing

Open Bionics

Cameron Millar with his Hero Arm inspired in Star Wars. Retrieved from Open Bionics

The most functional and affordable prosthetic arm in the market today, as it is made with 3D printing. It is designed for both adults and children with amputations below the elbow. Hero Arm is a myoelectric prosthesis that uses the muscle cues of the rest of the arm to function and have the grip function.

One of its particularities is its uniqueness, as it is designed according to the exact measurements of the person carrying it, making it very easily adaptable to each person and that each prosthesis is unique. This is possible thanks to 3D technology, which allows first to make a scanner of the limb to obtain the exact measurements of the person, and then to use 3D printing to print the prosthetic. This reduces production costs, while at the same time increasing speed, and it becomes possible to make a prosthetic arm in just one day.

Hero Arm is a robust but lightweight prosthesis, as well as comfortable and breathable, making it easier to adapt and at the same time remove it for cleaning, charging, etc. It is designed to be as intuitive as possible for the person thanks to vibrations, lights, buttons and sensors. In addition to being the most affordable prosthetic of this type in the market, it also has a number of different covers to choose from. This way each person can choose the model that is closest to their style, from simple designs to bionic arms inspired by Iron Man, making this prosthesis an empowering and functional element, especially for children.

Open Bionics

Personal budgets, a new model that facilitates the autonomy and decision-making capacity of people with disabilities

Publications Bank of innovations

Personal budgets, a new model that facilitates the autonomy and decision-making capacity of people with disabilities

Flemish Agency for Persons with Disabilities (VAPH, Flemish acronym), Support-Girona Foundation

User creating his Personal Budget with the help of an adviser

A system targeted at disabled people who need long-term care and support, which enables the individual to decide which services he or she wants to receive and how he or she wants to receive them. This is thanks to a Personal Budget that is allocated to him and that the person himself can decide how to spend it.

First, the person, who needs to be over 17 years old, makes a personal budget request, making an application to indicate what activities he wants to do, what support he has currently, whether these are sufficient or not to meet his needs, what are his strengths and weaknesses, etc. Once the request is made, a multidisciplinary team issues a report in which they objectively assess the needs of the person and the Personal Budget that would fit him best.

Once the Personal Budget is granted to the person, they will be able to decide freely, firstly, whether to receive it in the form of coupons or bank transfer. Secondly, what type of services they want to invest in: direct home care, participation in therapies, obtaining an individual supervisor for one day trips, hiring a transport company to manage their mobility, etc.

In this way, the Flemish system of Personal Budgets allows for long-term care which provides greater autonomy for disabled people in deciding how to meet their own needs on the basis of the range of services available.

VAPH

Older Women’s Cohousing, fighting against unwanted solitude

Publications Bank of innovations

Older Women’s Cohousing, fighting against unwanted solitude

Older Women’s Cohousing (OWCH) and Housing for Women

Members of the OWCH Project in one of the dwellings

Community housing project for women over the age of 50 deployed in North London. It consists of 26 individual dwellings that combine common areas so that community members have privacy at the same time as spaces where they meet and make community life. It is a group controlled by the same neighbours, where decisions are taken in a shared way and in which each woman collaborates in any way they can.

This housing model is a good form of empowerment for older women who live alone and want to share their lives with other women while also feeling independent. An important part of the project is that it is inclusive. To not discriminate by income level, part of the housing is social rental and therefore at affordable prices. The 26 members of the community, who are between 50 and 80 years old, are not only neighbours, but share their day-to-day activities such as gardening, painting, lunches with family members and friends, etc. In this way, they remedy loneliness and is expected that living accompanied can lead to a longer and better life.

Older Women’s Cohousing

Biel Digital Glasses, 3D glasses to adapt the world to lower vision

Publications Bank of innovations

Biel Digital Glasses, 3D glasses to adapt the world to lower vision

Biel Digital Glasses

Biel using one of the prototypes of Biel Digital Glasses

Intelligent 3D glasses that facilitate mobility and personal autonomy for people with low vision. Low vision is a visual impairment that cannot be corrected with conventional glasses or surgery. It is a much more common disability than blindness (it affects 7 million people in Europe, and 70 million worldwide) and prevents daily tasks such as reading, moving in public spaces, avoiding obstacles or interpreting signals.

“Biel Digital Glasses” glasses use a combination of new technologies such as 3D vision, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality to adapt reality to the visual ability of people with low vision. In addition to improving images, they identify obstacles, and warn about possible dangers, such as steps or semaphores. In this way, these glasses allow these people to reduce their social isolation and improve their mobility and personal autonomy.

Biel Digital Glasses

Ankommen, an app that guides refugees during their first weeks in Germany

Publications Bank of innovations

Ankommen, an app that guides refugees during their first weeks in Germany

Federal Migration and Refugee Office and Federal Employment Agency, Germany Goethe Institut and ARD-Alpha Bildungskhannel

Ankommen app

Ankommen (arriving) is an application for mobile phones that guides the refugees during their first weeks of arrival in Germany, offering them basic information about the country of reception, on the legislation of refuge and asylum, on programs of professional training and employability, etc.

It also offers online German classes. The APP has versions in Arabic, Farsi, German, English and French. It’s free, does not contain advertising, works for Android and iOS platforms, and can also be used offline.

The development of the application has been possible thanks to a close collaboration between the Federal Bureau of Migration and Refugees, the Goethe Institute, the Federal Employment Agency, and ARD-Bayerischer Rundfunk, a public broadcaster of radio and television.

Ankommen