MoPaix

MoPaix was created with primary objective of helping people with autism in the academic and social field. 

To improve learning and socializing opportunity for people with autism, me and my friend created a method, using technology, that can help them. We created the MoPaix. MoPaix is a communication app for autistics, which, together with a bluetooth-connected headphones that use noise-canceling materials, and a lavalier microphone, so that the voice of those who will use it is clearer and improves the understanding of the autistic person. MoPaix can help autistics people in the school and social environment, canceling out the noises that bother them, since on the spectrum, many have hypersensitivity auditory. The app user can creat a chat room and also their own playlist music. Music is very effective in helping to treat language disorders in individuals with autism.

We already know that the lack of inclusion is one of the biggest problems in this matter, but is not the only one. In Brazil there are a lot of parents that find it really hard to enroll their autistic children in school, and when they do, the learning, socialization and inclusion become new challenges. Schools are not ready to meet the autistic children's needs, most of the people with autism have auditory hypersensitivity,the prevalence was 53%, through Manual Diagnóstico e Estatístico de Transtornos Mentais (DSM-III), 90% with altered sensitivity for the auditory modality, using the Structured Interview for Assessing Perceptual Anomalies - Child Version (SIAPA-CV) and 45% reactions in the auditory modality when using the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO). The auditory hypersensitivity can make them notice even the sound that the rest can´t, and this can make them stressful and aggressive. One of the autistic people that we interviewed said that the noise of a classroom can sound like an airplane taking off. These problems can impair their academic performance and aggravate their social exclusion. In the world, it is estimated that only 20% of spectrum holders are currently employed. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 48% of autistic children aged 4 to 17 are outside the classroom.

Our target audience is people with autism, but nothing prevents a person with attention deficit from using our product too. We want them to have the same opportunities that we have, like, going to school without worrying if you're going to struggle because of the noise, going to school without autistic people being taught in a way that leaves them excluded from their classmates, or having friends without having difficulty expressing themselves, or even even be able to witness the New Year's fireworks without getting stressed or aggressive. As I already said, only 20% of spectrum holders are currently employed. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 48% of autistic children aged 4 to 17 are outside the classroom. These kids have the right to attend school, to have a good education and opportunities. With MoPaix they can achieve all these goals. 

Everything started with our school, we started to question ourselves ¨Why aren't there so many people with autism in our school? Why do we never study with someone with autism?¨. In our high school, there is only one student with autism, but we barely studied with him. So we started to search more about it and we felt touched by the struggle they have to go through. So, we were selected to participate in a program promoted by the American embassy in Brazil to empower young girls in the areas of politics, science and technology called STEAM POWER FOR GIRLS, in this program our concern about autistic people came into our minds, so we created and developed the MoPaix. Then we were able to prepare online questionnaires and schedule interviews with parents of autistic children and and subject matter experts, to better understand what they were facing, in one of these interviews, the children's mother told us something that marked us a lot, she said she spends the commemorative dates, like the New Year, when has a lot of noise or fireworks, locked in the room with her children to try to calm them down because of the sounds that scare the and make them stress. Being aware that thousands of families spend the New Year or any other commemorative date like that, made us more sensitized to the cause.

After several applications to our school's programs, our project was chosen to be funded in the amount of R$ 3000 ($ 549,53), which was possible to buy the headset, the lavalier microphone, the shirts for the team and pay for mentoring in the development of the app. However, the junction of noise-canceling materials with the headphone has not yet been done, as we do not have the money to pay someone to do it, and no mentoring for us to learn how to do it.

MoPaix intoduces new use of an existing technology, witch is the headphone, the noise-canceling material. Our key component is the MoPaix App, where the user can create a chat room, where the autistic pearson can use it anywhere, at school ou even in an amusement park. The app, also features the possibility of creating a music playlist. Our solution consists of the common structure of bluetooth connected headphones that use noise canceling materials, which the autistic person will use, either for a classroom or simply to listen to music and relax, with the headphone connected to the MoPaix app, in the case social, the other person, who will also be connected to the App will be using a lavalier microphone to amplify their voice and improve the autistic's understanding without outside noise interfering.

MoPaix hasn't reached many people yet, as we are still in the testing phase. But we want to reach millions of lives and be able to help them someday. For next year we want our solution to start being used in our country first and then go out into the world. As Brazil is a very big country, we want to start helping people in our region, Brasília-DF. There is no exact number of how many people have autism in Brasilia-DF, but there is an estimated 15 thousand people with the disorder. We want to reach those lives next year.

We want to impact the autistics pearsons in our region first, helping them in the school environment, for learning, and socially, to reintegrate socially. When we get everything ready to put the solution into practice, we'll try to put it in schools first as our final test phase. We are trying to find some kind of partnership that can help us with outreach, mentoring and funding to improve the product. We already have an intagram account that we want to grow. Once these goals are reached we want to bring MoPaix to market to reach more autistic people in the region.

After several works he published to apply MoPaix to various events, we saved all the data from the surveys we debug, controlled the posts in our instagram account and used the data we saved to write a report, where we organized everything we've done so far. . We will use a Trello platform to organize all MoPaix data like,meetings, interviews, questionnaire data, etc.

Currently, what makes progress more difficult is Covid, which unfortunately deprives us of physical contact with other people, and the testing phase that needs to be done in person. Apart from that reason, we also need professional monitoring to be able to make our headphone with bluetooth connection and noise canceling materials, another problem is the lack of funding. The money we received to take the first steps with MoPaix has already been used, nowadays we need something bigger, to develop the headphone and to improve MoPaix app's functions and design.

Our team consists of just two members. Me, Maria Clara, and Graziella, participated in several events promoted by the American embassy in Brazil, such as Data Meeting Brazil and Steam Power For Girls. These events provided us with help with programming and app development. We used this knowledge we acquired to develop the MoPaix app and we had guidance on how to develop our solution. In 2022, we´ll have more classes about entrepreneurship, technology, leadership and programming, which will help us as a team and as entrepreneurs. Currently, we are working on our instagram, I'm responsible for making the posts design, always trying to learn how to get better, and Graziella is responsible for the captions. We also finished classes made by Praxis and Gloria Institute, we learned about organization as a team and about communication. We work as voluntiers on Gloria Institute, where we have learn everything that I mentioned. We are always looking to get to know autistic people better, that's why we were able to contact an autistic clinic and people who work with children with autism, so we can contact them to get to know them better and also introduce our product and see if it needs changes.

At this moment we still don't have any partnerships, but for 2022, this is one of the goals for the MoPaix team.

As we all know, science, technology and entrepreneurship is predominantly male, which makes it difficult for young women to develop in this area. Although we do not have extensive experience as women entrepreneurs and technologies we are competing in this struggle, we have already received messages from girls who were inspired by our struggle, we participated in programs aimed at the development of girls in these areas and we feel ready to help other girls. We are working on a solution that aims to end the social and academic exclusion of autistic people, our solution involves technology and entrepreneurship. Despite being a difficult struggle, we are willing to continue and inspire other girls. We want to help autistic people who are socially and academically excluded because of their difficulties. We believe that the best way to change the world is through education.

We qualify for the Pozen Social Innovation Award because we want to innovate social and academic spheres for autistic people, who are a minority who are not heard a lot. Our solution was created thanks to the support of our school in helping women in science, it would be a great honor if MoPaix could represent the struggle, strength and faith that everyone has placed in MoPaix. The award can help us to finally put MoPaix into practice, improve our marketing and also extend the reach of our solution. We also want to invest in our knowledge about autistic people and be able to understand them better and better.