This year the ZERO Project conference took place in Vienna from 19-21 February.

The event focused on the topic of “Inclusive Education”.

The conference was also attended by members of the Easy Reading Team from the PIKSL Laboratory and the Johannes Kepler University Lienz (JKU).

Here we have summarized some impressions of the event:

Presentations and discussions

During the 3 days there were over 30 different conference sessions.

Tim Neumann and Lara Zeyßig presented their work in the PIKSL laboratory in two lectures in the panel “Vocational training for people with intellectual disabilities”.

Lara Zeyßig talked about the joint work at eye level. She presented the mentoring program, which “(…) is not only based on teaching techniques and methods. Rather, the program is about creating and establishing an inclusive mindset and team where everyone is accepted and valued for the person she or he is.”

Tim Neumann spoke about the role of peer teachers. “The peer teacher as a person with learning disabilities was in the same situation as the participants. They are very good at passing on their knowledge to other digital beginners, as they had to simplify the complexity of the digital world for themselves in the beginning.”

On the last day of the conference, Klaus Miesenberger from JKU took part in the discussion on online educational resources. During the session, various online resources that support access to education, such as online libraries and learning platforms, were presented and discussed.

Award ceremony

A special highlight of the conference was the award ceremony.

The PIKSL Laboratory Düsseldorf was awarded as one of two initiatives in Germany and 74 others worldwide for its PIKSL mobile service.

Easy Reading Conference Stand

The Easy Reading project was also presented at the event. At the Easy Reading Stand, all conference participants had the opportunity to learn more about the project.

The participants were able to try out the Easy Reading software themselves.

We were very happy to talk to many different people about the software and to listen to their feedback.

Further information

More pictures from the event can be found on the Zero Conference website.

On the website you can also download all PowerPoint presentations of the conference participants, including PIKSL.