With Det. G00772 of 01/24/2023 published in BUR Lazio 8 of 01/26/2023 the Director of the Regional Directorate for Economic Development, Productive Activities and Research, took note of the results of the preliminary investigation carried out by Lazio Innova and the evaluation carried out by the Technical Evaluation Committee approved the lists of admitted, eligible and fundable Projects and the related grant awarded.

Among the admitted Projects also appears the one submitted by Tech4All.

CUP: F88I23000130006

Grant awarded: 46,681.68

Abstract

The REASY project aims to create a digital tool to support dyslexic students by taking advantage of the high technology offered by artificial intelligence algorithms. In a preliminary study carried out by the University of Tuscia and published in the international journal MDPI-Applied Sciences (https://doi.org/10.3390/app11104624), it was shown how students with dyslexia who decide to embark on a university course of study manage to acquire, on average, 6 fewer CFUs (college credits) than non-dyslexic students, which corresponds to about one less exam. As a result, the dropout rate, due to a high probability of finishing out of course, is significantly higher in dyslexic students. Considering secondary school studies as well, students with DSA are three times more likely to drop out of school: 18.1 percent compared to the 6.1 percent average dropout rate. Career renunciation by students causes a decrease in the amount of the Ordinary Financing Fund received by each university, as it is parameterized on the number of students. In addition, specific training courses for university teachers are not easily delivered in a way that makes classes accessible to people with Special Educational Needs. Finally, it is be known how the support tools for dyslexic students are mainly associated with elementary school, while as the school years go by, the support for students decreases significantly and, most importantly, there is no standardization among Italian universities, but also European universities, in making the university reality accessible and inclusive. It follows that there is a strong need to implement services and tools, taking advantage of digitization, to support dyslexic students at the university as well.

The REASY product is an application available for iOS, Android and Web that can support the study of dyslexic students. REASY, in fact, offers the possibility of personalizing each student’s learning material, providing the most appropriate study methodology, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. REASY, through the development of a Chrome browser extension, makes it possible that all the accessibility benefits that the platform offers can be extended to any web page and web app on which the person is browsing. Consider, for example, widely used learning environments from Secondary School through University such as Google Classroom, Moodle and Teams: they can be made accessible thanks to our extension

Purpose

The main purpose of the startup project is to implement new features of the REASY platform and optimize existing ones (downloadable for free on Apple and Google Store as Reading Easy), as well as to publicize the product through targeted marketing campaigns with the ultimate goal of sales at universities and secondary schools. Thus, the overall project objective turns out to be the realization of a product of interest to investors operating in the market.