The degree thesis “Virtual and Augmented Reality & Conversational Agents for Persons with Autism: A Case Study” by Giacomo Bacchini, Andrea Panizzi and Davide Perugini, has received the “Nuove Guglie Carlo Tognoli” Award. The dissertation was written with the supervision of Prof. Franca Garzotto, head of i3lab at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, and the PhD students Francesco Vona and Alberto Patti.
The "Nuove Guglie Carlo Tognoli" Award is meant to be a recognition for Master theses dedicated to the future of Milan and written by deserving students of Politecnico and Bocconi universities, and it is the heart of “Amare Milano come te”, a project dedicated to the former mayor of Milan Carlo Tognoli.
The thesis research was performed in the context of project 5A – Autonomie per l’Autismo Attraverso realtà Aumentata, realtà virtuale, ed Agenti conversazionali, co-funded by TIM Foundation. 5A aims to increase the social autonomy of medium/high functioning and high functioning autistic persons from 16 years to adulthood. To this end, 5A has developed a set of interactive applications that integrate immersive virtual reality, augmented reality and conversational agents, co-designed in collaboration with the experts of two prestigious therapeutic centers specialized in autism: Associazione La Nostra Famiglia - IRCSS Medea and Fondazione Sacra Famiglia.