Simplon, bringing out the technological talent of vulnerable people

admin on 25 October 2019

Foto: Simplon.co

Simplon is a French, social, solidarity-based, innovative organization company that works to transform the digital sector into a more inclusive sector by discovering people with hidden talent among vulnerable social groups, and forming them professionally so that they can find a qualified occupation in the sector.

Since its creation in 2013, Simplon has trained in digital technologies, free of charge, more than 5,600 people with this profile, mainly refugees, adolescents at risk of exclusion and long-term unemployed people. These people with technological talent which remained hidden or which they had never had the opportunity to develop, have learned to develop their skills and abilities in this field to be able to work in the sector: programming mobile applications and web pages, management of digital projects, entrepreneurship of innovative projects, or technology training.

Characteristics of innovation

Adolescence and youth, Bank of innovations, Group intervention, Innovative organization, Lab, Link with the community, Poverty and exclusion, Prediction and prevention

Location

Montreuil, França

Partners / Funders

France Active, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Phitrust, INCO, Aviva, Crédit Coopératif, Amundi, and Mirova

Genesis

In 2013, three young entrepreneurs, inspired by Silicon Valley bootcamps, decided to create an inclusive and free version that incorporated a large number of women as well as people of different social and territorial origin. The first facilities opened in Montreuil, France, and the first promotion, which had 30 students of 17 nationalities, began in October of the same year.

Implementation level

The Simplon network has spread over the years to various French cities. In 2014 a training center was opened in Romania, and later expanded to Belgium, Lebanon, Ivory Coast and South Africa. In Catalonia, Factoría F5 was created in 2019, a similar initiative that follows the French model.

Further information

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Artificial Inteligence for identification of social vulnerability

admin on 18 July 2019

Foto: City of Espoo

Big Data Analysis through Artificial Intelligence (IA) of multiple demographic databases to identify which people in a municipality need social help. This is a successful experiment carried out in 2017 by the City of Espoo (Finland), which has analyzed the social, health, and educational data of the entire population of the municipality, around 520,000 people, between the years 2002 and 2016.

Population data has been analyzed grouped according to various family environments, rather than by traditional methods of individual analysis. The results have allowed to identify, for example, 280 predictive factors in the field of childhood vulnerability and to show that, although none of these individual factors is a risk, the simultaneous occurrence of several factors can be a risk.

This pioneering experience of the Espoo City Council has shown that the analysis of a large volume of data from different origins through Artificial Intelligence techniques can play a very important role in the future of Social Services.