Freigeist Lab

People with intellectual disabilities have very few possibilities to execute demanding work activities by themselves. They usually need very close assistance by human supervisors for solving challenging tasks like activities with frequently changing or multi-part workflows. The need of human assistance means a barrier for self-determination and unfortunately human assitants are mostly too expensive for assisting people with intellectual disabilities on the job appropriately all day.

Our digital assistant is designed to make the users more self-determined and competent for working in a truly inclusive environment. Since September 2018 we are running a prototype restaurant in which a set up of smart motion sensors, our software and video projections assists the employees preparing meals with individual recipes and structuring workflows. On a global scale our concept can provide and inspire more self-determined and decent work opportunities for millions of people with intellectual disabilities.

Millions of people with intellectual disabilities worldwide would like to earn their income by themselves. Because of their disabilities they have various difficulties to carry out many work activities. Compared to people without diagnosed disabilities they often need more time for learning new tasks or they can not complete multi-part workflows by themselves at all. For this reason most of these people can only perform very low complex tasks at work and their income keeps being dependent on social welfare grants.  

The lack of job opportunities leads to less self-determination for these people and robotics as well as automation increase the lack of job opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities.

Human assistants can improve work performance of people with disabilities but they double the costs for performing demanding tasks because they also need to be paid for their job. This leads to uneconomical work processes. Further human assistants reduce self-determination because the assisted people are dependent on their working hours, concentration or on their mood for example.

There is a large industry developing high-tech prostheses for people with physical disabilities which enables them to work self-determined but there is no comparable industry developing up-to-date tools for people with intellectual disabilities. 

We have developed a digital assistant allowing people with intellectual disabilities to overcome cognitive weaknesses for increasing their work performance. Since September 2018 we are running a restaurant which is equipped with motion sensors, computers and video projectors for assisting the employees. The motion sensors are fixed to the cookware for tracking most of the tasks being performed by the employees when preparing meals. Video projections support the employees by indicating which ingredients to choose for each meal and by providing other helpful information. Our computers are linked to the cash desk for having a seamless workflow.

The users can choose at what time they would like to be assisted at work which is an important part of their self-determination. The digital assistant always adapts to the individual working speed of each user.

We will multiply this restaurant concept for providing new job opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities. Further we continue developing our software in order to expand the impact of our tool. Digital assistants can be much cheaper than human assistants. They can improve self-determination and the income of the users. In a large scale it can lead to lower costs for national welfare systems as well.

Millions of people with intellectual disabilities are working in workshops for disabled people worldwide. These workshops are mostly old-fashioned and don´t meet expectations of young employees which would like to work in a more inclusive and up-to-date environment for example. We have developed our digital assistant together with these young people with intellectual disabilities. They are motivated to do work, they know about their disabilities and they have experienced that technology can improve their lives. People with intellectual disabilities need selective support for recalling workflows, counting, coping with stressful situations or similar situations which often don´t necessarily need human intervention. Our users would rather like to work with colleagues than with supervisors. Digital assistants can help to make their wish for more self-determination come true. Finally our solution serves the whole society as it can help to reduce social welfare costs.

Today, jobs for people with intellectual disabilities are threatened by robotics and automation in particular. But new technologies can raise the performance level and independence of people with intellectual disabilities. Our solution allows new job opportunities and provides tools to the users which make them more self-determined at work than ever before.  

A large industry is providing a wide range of tools and prostheses for people with physical disabilities. But this unfortunately does not apply to people with intellectual disabilities. Software, sensors and new technologies like smart home technologies, the internet of things or artificial intelligence offer new possibilities for building digital assistants to overcome cognitive disorders. Costs for many of these technologies are constantly decreasing and implementation is getting easier. Another innovative part of our solution is to design multipliable work modules like our restaurant concept that can be rolled out worldwide easily instead of aiming at complex individual solutions which are expensive and serve a very small user group. Further we see our solution as a source of inspiration for millions of employers who can benefit from our experience for adapting our concept to their needs.

Our digital assistant consists of software, sensors and output devices like video projectors. Our software has stored multiple workflows that can be called at any time for assisting the users. The sensors track the work related motion (e.g. work speed) of the users. The main sensors are standard bluetooth motion beacons that can be mounted to any tool the users need for completing their work tasks. The video projections show helpful information on the work surface.

The user can decide whether he needs permanent support by the assistant or whether he would like to use it as a backup when being stressed for example. People without diagnosed disability can work together with disabled people at the same workplace with no restriction at the same time for allowing a truly inclusive experience.

Since september 2018 we are running a restaurant using the technology five days a week. All components of our solution are widely used technologies and have been combined by us to design a new product. Our design strategy is to build our solution as simple as possible for keeping the users existing skills visible and for being able to provide an affordable product. The users are very satisfied with our solution and have prepared more than 25.000 meals with the help of our technology. Please have a look our short video on YouTube.

We have developed and tested a digital assistant together with our target group. Since our solution is installed and was optimized in a pilot restaurant for almost two years we know about the immediate impact on our users. People with intellectual disabilities are enabled to learn new workflows twice as fast as with human assistants because they can practice their work by themselves much more often. We have found out that gamification can even improve these results. The users can complete more complex tasks so that their performance level is increasing significantly. Further we can observe, that most young people with disabilities love to work in a innovative and digital context. Our users are very much committed to their workplace and feel motivated by their new skills. The guests and customers of our restaurant are also remarkably loyal as they benefit from the reliable service the employees are providing.

We are constantly sharing the results of our work with other professionals, organizations, researchers and potential users in Germany for improving our product and for preparing future multiplication. Due to our work we know that there is a huge demand for our solution and we were able to convince the jury of startup competitions such as a competition for innovative workshops for disabled people in germany, the german hospitality startup award 2018 as well as the international design award iF social impact prize. Within the last years we have also gained supporters on a high political level because our solution can have a positive impact on social welfare costs in future.

We are working on multiplication for our restaurant concept in the next step because we quickly want more people to benefit of our solution. This will also help us to generate recurring revenue for getting independent of grants and investment capital as soon as possible. When rolling out the restaurant concept on a larger scale our digital assistant will increase self-determination for many future users and will inspire many employers and employees to implement similar solutions in their companies.

Currently our pilot restaurant is run by 10 people with intellectual disabilities. These employees are working with our solution every day. Within the next months we will build a second restaurant which will be run as a pop up restaurant in various locations all over Germany. This will increase the number of users to about 100. In 2022 we plan to roll out the restaurant concept as a simple social franchise. As our solution will get more known and other companies will adapt our solution to their needs we assume that our solution and similar adapted solutions can serve up to 5.000 people with intellectual disabilities in five years. This will hopefully be the start for making hundreds of thousands of people with intellectual disabilities more self-determined at work in future.

Our aim is to make the users of our solution more self-determined and to provide them a wider range of job opportunities. Our target group will be able to increase their performance level and to raise their income. Therefor we are developing work modules like our restaurant concept. We will build a pop up restaurant the next months for promoting our product all over Germany. The pop up restaurant will be run by local people with intellectual disabilities at every location. Thereby we want to prepare the future multiplication of our product and we want to motivate people to think about the future opportunities of similar solutions. In 2022 we want to start rolling out the restaurant concept as a social franchise.

We expect many requests for adapting our solution to other work tasks within the next years and we will consider whether these requests apply to our goals and capacities for increasing the impact of our work. Finally we believe that we will be able to start rolling out our solution on an international level within the next five years. Besides serving the users of our solution we would like to prove that we can reduce social welfare costs significantly with the help of digital assistants. We also aim at being financially profitable with our product within the next three to five years.

Our biggest challenge is to find funds for paying a permanent team of experts which will be able to scale our solution the next five years. The team will have to consist of labor educators, software developers, marketing experts as well as designers and managing experts. Since we have build up a large network of supporters within the last two years we know where to find these experts.

The second challenge is to develop a professional marketing strategy. 

On a technical level we would love to find out whether and how simple artificial intelligence could improve our solution. Unfortunately we don´t have access to experts being able to discuss and implement such technology.

Funds: We are currently applying for public funds by the German government and are planing to promote our solution at social business angels and social venture funds. In the meantime we continue our mission with the help of family and friends as well as with the support of our network.

Marketing: We already have an offer for developing an overall marketing strategy which we will accept as soon as we can financially afford it.

Tech : We will try to get in contact with universities for discussing whether and how artificial intelligence can improve the impact of our solution.

Currently 1 person is working full-time on developing the solution. 

Our restaurant is run by a workshop for disabled people (SKID gGmbH, https://skid-ggmbh.de/) which we consider as part of our team. Further we are working with 3 contractors for software development. Two of these contractors are aiming at joining the team permanently. All gastronomic expertise is provided by a contractor. 

Our team consists of people with various professions. All team members have a long term relationship to people with disabilities and feel strongly committed to our vision. The team leader is an industrial engineer and has been working for a gastronomic franchise about 8 years. He is supported by two pedagogues, three software developers, a marketing expert and a gastronomic expert. By running the pilot restaurant we have proven that we can achieve our goals and we have been able to build up a unique network of supporters which are strongly motivated to help us scaling our solution in future

The SKID gGmbH is a workshop for disabled people on the Lake of Constance. This company runs the pilot restaurant using our solution since September 2018.

The « BAG WfbM » is the German federation of workshops for disabled people. They help us promoting our solution towards their members by inviting us to talks.   

The Federal Government Commissioner for Matters relating to Persons with Disabilities is currently supporting us for applying for public funds.

Our solution enables the users to work more self-determined and to raise their income. Therefor we provide work modules that consist of a business model, a digital assistant and ongoing technical support. We plan to distribute the work modules as a social franchise. As a standardized concept we can multiply the solutions easily. The form of distribution will allow us to generate recurring revenue with the help of monthly franchise fees.

We are already partnering with contractors (especially in terms of gastronomic infrastructure) who are active in the franchise business so that we will be able to scale our solution quickly in future. Due to our existing partnership with multipliers in the social business (like the German federation of workshops for disabled people) we have access to many potential customers. We aim at selling our products to people with disabilities who would like to build up their own business with the help of our solution as well as to larger social organisations already employing people with disabilities and smaller companies who seek employing people with disabilities in future.

Our revenue will be invested in scaling our solution and developing new work modules in future. For achieving our goals we need to build up a team of experts for sales, marketing and customer support. Within the next years we will be constantly raising money (public funds and other investment capital) for making our vision come true and getting profitable in the next three to five years.

The next three to five years we will need to raise funds for building up our franchise business. Therefor we are applying for public funds and we will be negotiating with social business angels as well as with social venture funds. When having 30-40 customers using our solution we will start being profitable with the help of monthly franchise fees.

People with intellectual disabilities are living and seeking for decent work all over the world. Our international solution can even increase work performance of illiterates and deaf people with intellectual disabilities because our digital assistant does not presuppose any specific language for interacting. We would like to inspire people in germany as well as in every other country. 

By applying to Solve we would like to get to know the US perspective on our solution. We would like to discuss it with researchers at MiT and with operators of workshops for disabled people in the United States. 

Further we would also like to check funding opportunities for our solution in the United States.

Our network lacks of funding experts and close contacts to social venture companies. This, of course, is crucial for building up the right structure of our company in details and for finding social venture companies investing in our vision.

In terms of marketing our team is not ready to scale our solution on a national or international level. There is no overall marketing strategy for our solution up to now. 

We would like to partner with researchers at MiT for discussing, developing and testing further technologies for achieving our goals. Our team does not have access to technologies like artificial intelligence for example so that we would love to discuss in a workshop how and at what stage we should implement such technology.