AccessiLingua

Call for solution type:
Innovation Partnership
Dates of Public Procurement:
from 02-05-2024 to 10-06-2024
Demo Day:
22.10.2024
Status:
Solution finalised
To the public procurement portal

Identified challenge

 

In the context of writing texts in FALC and "Leichte Sprache" for the Guichet.lu website, it is proving difficult to produce texts in high volumes. Currently, the Guichet.lu editorial team selects the most relevant and urgent texts and transcribes them into FALC and Leichte Sprache. These proposals are then sent to Klaro, a department of the APEMH Foundation, Luxembourg's official centre for easy language and accessible communication, which submits the texts for revision to collaborators affected by intellectual disabilities. The latter submit proposals for modifications to ensure that the texts correctly comply with the FALC and "Leichte Sprache" rules. The Inclusion Europe logo certifies this verification.

This process is long and time-consuming for public sector bodies, which limits the deployment of texts in FALC and "Leichte Sprache" on a large scale on government websites. The creation of an efficient tool for transcribing texts in simple language, as close as possible to the rules of FALC and "Leichte Sprache", seems essential to speed up the publication of these texts. These texts meet the needs of people with reading difficulties, such as people with learning disabilities, the elderly or those whose mother tongue is not the language in which the text is written.

The challenge identified is to design a tool based on artificial intelligence that can assist various text writers to generate the equivalent in simple language as efficiently as possible.

Please contact the digital inclusion team at the Ministry of Digitalisation if you are interested in this solution.
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Process

Launch of the call for solutions

Thirteen candidates participated in the tender and submitted a concept note for the AccessiLingua innovation partnership. An initial evaluation by the jury identified the five best applications based on the following criteria: the innovative and creative nature of the proposed solution and the quality of the concept note, as well as the skills of the candidate(s) in the field.

The jury was composed of the following six members:

  • Luc Schockmel, Ministry for Digitalisation
  • Patrick Houtsch, Government Information Technology Centre
  • Ben Max, Ministry for Digitalisation
  • Michèle Stein, Ministry of Family Affairs, Solidarity, Living Together and Reception of Refugees
  • Dominique Nauroy, Information and Press Service
  • Christopher Schmitt, KLARO Service
The Proof of Concept phase

The Proof of Concept phase allowed candidates to put their concept notes into practice. Candidates had several months to develop a prototype of the solutions proposed in their concept notes. Regular meetings were organised during this phase to support candidates and monitor the progress of developments.

Demo Day

Each of the five candidates was invited to the Demo Day to pitch to the jury to demonstrate how their prototype works. Ahead of the Demo Day, access to each prototype had to be set up for the GovTech Lab team. The aim was to carry out tests and allow the output texts to be evaluated in advance by the APEMH's Klaro service control groups. This evaluation was presented to the jury on the Demo Day and was taken into account in the jury's overall evaluation.

The evaluations were carried out according to the following criteria:

  • Quality of the prototype
  • IT functioning of the prototype
  • Skills of the candidate/team
  • Planning and budget

The Demo Day ended with the jury's deliberation and the presentation of the evaluation forms.

 

Design phase

After the Demo Day, the winning team was announced and thus Team ‘Soft Giant’ was invited to move on to the design phase. This phase was intended to develop the features and architecture of the future solution through a series of workshops with the selected candidate, the Guichet.lu editorial team and the CTIE technical teams. The implementation proposal was accepted, marking the end of the innovation partnership and the start of the project phase.

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The development of the solution has been completed and is currently being tested by the Guichet.lu editorial team. The solution can then be offered to other interested administrations and ministries.