Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci First Private School, Bulgaria: The school is situated on the right bank of the Danube River in Ruse, the 5th biggest town in Bulgaria, in a well-developed region.

The school comprises a primary and a secondary school so its students are between 7 and 19 years of age. The classes are organised in 2 sessions; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The students include children from the town and the region as well as kids and youths of mixed or foreign origin so they speak a variety of languages, have different religions, come from various cultures and ethnicities. There are children both of Turkish, British, Romanian and Russian background and youngsters who were born and have lived in Britain, Spain, Canada and the USA, whose parents are both Bulgarian, both foreigners or one of them is Bulgarian. Therefore, they have difficulties in communicating in Bulgarian, which often happens to be their mother tongue. Our school has rich experience in the application of cross-curricula activities for example including fairy tales, games, drama, dance, sports, creative, ecological and artistic activities in the teaching process. For years, the School has been organising Summer Academy Daily programmes during the summer holidays, where the children 6-10 years have the opportunity to apply their skills, talents and knowledge of Maths, Science, Bulgarian, English and other languages while working on a wide range of topics (Pets, Healthy Eating, The Danube, The Earth, Friends, etc.). Since 2011, the School has been a member of the For a Better School Climate International Network.

NUMBER OF MEMBERS/STAFF – 33 teachers

NUMBER OF STUDENTS - 130 students in 12 classes (6 – 8 students in a class); Since its establishment in 2005, Leonardo da Vinchi School has educated over 400 young people. In addition to that, over 1,900 children from more than 15 countries have attended the Summer Academy at the School.

Contact info: Svetlana Ivanova Harizanova, ps_leonardo@mail.bg

University of Ruse

Angel Kanchev" University of Ruse is an autonomous state higher school. There are eight faculties in the structure of the University - Agrarian and Industrial Faculty, Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering Electronics and Automation, Faculty of Transport, Faculty of Business and Management, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Education, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Public Health and Healthcare, three Branches of Ruse University in Silistra, Razgrad and Vidin, and a Bulgarian and Romanian Inter-university Europa Centre.

The Faculty of Natural Sciences and Education was founded in 1994. Over 800 students study in this Faculty in the Bachelor, Master and Doctoral degree programmes, in the fields of Pedagogy, Computer Science, Mathematics, Bulgarian language and History, accredited with the highest grade by the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency. There are five departments in the structure of the Faculty: Pedagogy, Psychology and History; Bulgarian Language, Literature and Arts; Informatics and Information Technologies; Mathematics; Applied Mathematics and Statistics.

Lecturers from the Faculty participate in international projects with colleagues from Greece, Great Britain, Russia and Italy and work under joint programmes, related to research and exchange of lecturers and students with universities from many countries such as Australia, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, Greece, Estonia, Israel, Spain, Canada, Cyprus, China, Korea, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the USA, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Hungary, etc.

Contact info: Assoc. Prof. Desislava Atanasova, PhD, datanasova@uni-ruse.bg

Nottingham Trent University

Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is one of the most sustainable universities in the world. They have approximately 27,000 students across three campuses. The Interactive Systems Research Group (ISRG) is a part of the computing and technology team at NTU. The group develops and evaluates virtual environments, serious games and assistive technologies to promote the social inclusion of all EU citizens. A major part of their research involves the design and evaluation of novel ICT for people with disabilities and those at risk of social exclusion. The ISRG have also forged strong links with the departments of education and psychology, giving access to expertise in both domains and strengthening the quality of the group’s research.

Contact info: Prof. David Brown, david.brown@ntu.ac.uk

PhoenixKM BVBA

PhoenixKM BVBA, established in 2007, is a dynamic SME with extensive expertise in the field of inclusion and accessibility consultancy. It is focused towards the integration of people with disabilities in every aspect of daily life and aims to achieve its goal by aggregating knowledge, expertise and experience in the field of education, training and employment and making it available to the targeted user groups through well-defined consultancy services, as well as private and publicly funded projects by its dedicated experts. P6 carries out these services & initiatives throughout Europe, but also beyond and provides its expertise to the private and public sector.

PhoenixKM also has a department that provides targeted and specialised advice on the successful usage of mobile technology for educational purposes, as well as training on the usage of social media in various business domains (media, music, service provision). Increasingly, this knowledge is being applied in all business domains in which P6 is being active, including the accessibility ones.

Contact info: Karel Van Isacker, karel@phoenixkm.eu

National Association of Professionals Working with People with Disabilities (NARHU)

NARHU, non-profit NGO in public service comprised of a National representative body of all professionals who are working with people with disabilities in terms of their education, employment and social inclusion. Its main activities are directed towards people with different type and degree of disabilities (PwDs), primarily in the spheres of their employment, professional orientation, consulting and training. The team of NARHU comprises of well-known experts in the field of inclusive education, psychologists, educational methodologists, social workers and technicians who are developing games based learning, mobile apps and training resources for inclusive education purposes.

SoftQNR

SoftQNR is a software development company based in Nis, Serbia. The company's main focus is the provision of software development and quality assurance services. We are working mainly with international clients. Our clients are companies that look for a reliable, added value and cost effective partner. Our references include sound names in US and Europe.

Along with standard Web development, our company lately focuses on development of mobile applications including integration of remote services following available technological innovations within Cloud computing (Saas and PaaS paradigms). Last but not least, we excel in providing robust and reliable solutions for “Big data problem” for our customers, as well as “Internet of Things problems”.
Our development teams follow and practice industry standard application development process (e.g. Agile, Scrum, and RUP). The company application development process comprises a comprehensive system development lifecycle, from business case analysis to maintenance and support of the IT systems.

Our specific expertise is reflected in mastering of: Web and mobile application development/integration, Agile methodologies (our engineers are Certified Scrum Masters), core Android development, knowledge of related OSS frameworks, rapid prototyping, Cloud computing (AWS and Azure), database development, and many others.

Contact info: Jelena Kocic, jelena.kocic@softqnr.com

University Rehabilitation Institute Republic of Slovenia

University Rehabilitation Institute, Republic of Slovenia (henceforth: Institute) was established in 1954. It is the central national health institute for comprehensive and interdisciplinary rehabilitation of patients with functional and workplace impairments.

The Institute performs the most demanding tasks and handles the most demanding cases on the secondary and (mainly) tertiary level in the field of physical medicine, rehabilitation and application of medical aids, as well as in the field of psycho-social and vocational rehabilitation. The Institute’s other tasks are research, outpatient and inpatient diagnostics and triage, teaching at the graduate and postgraduate level, and professional education and training.

The Institute treats about 10,000 patients a year, of whom about 1,800 are inpatients. Operating within the Institute are several specialised and sub-specialized clinics for patients with severe impairments and disorders of the neural and locomotor system and resulting disabilities. The expert staff of the Institute maintains the 60-year tradition of excellence in the medical, bioengineering and psychosocial fields.

The Institute has acquired several quality certificates, including ISO 9001:2008 for physical and rehabilitation medicine, vocational rehabilitation and orthotics and prosthetics, European accreditation for physical medicine and rehabilitation, and EQUASS Excellence – European excellence for the vocational rehabilitation field.

The Institute has become an internationally acclaimed institution through its expertise, experience, research and frequent participation of its members at major international conferences and workshops. The Institute can be ranked among the most successful healthcare organisations in Slovenia.

Contact info: Zdenka Wltavsky, zdenka.wltavsky@ir-rs.si