On 14 November 2025, the third and final advisory board meeting of the AutARK research project took place at the Faculty of Computer Science at Technische Universität Dresden. In addition to the members of the advisory board, Prof Dr Weber and the entire AutARK team participated in the all-day event. The meeting was held in hybrid mode with a total of 13 people on-site and 5 people online. The invited participants represent various areas of interest and institutions nationwide, such as autistic self-advocacy organisations, vocational training centres, academia, and the Federal Employment Agency.
Comprehensive Presentation of Project Results
In the morning, the project team presented the successful achievement of objectives over the entire three-year project duration. Impressive figures on publications, workshops, studies, and collaboration with numerous students demonstrated the scope of the work accomplished. Particularly noteworthy are the developed personas, which depict different perspectives of autistic people in the workplace in a differentiated manner and will be made available to the community in the future.
Subsequently, the diverse prototypes developed were presented: The SmartHeadphones enable concentrated work through intelligent noise cancellation whilst maintaining accessibility. The EmailAnalyser stood out particularly – Michael Ranke from autSocial e. V. emphasised that this tool would have helped him most in his professional life. The system can automatically generate task lists from emails, explain non-literal phrases, and create response suggestions. Further developments included the visually appealing SpiraClock for time and task management, the StressBuddy for context detection, as well as the AutiPuck and FidgetKnob as tangible interaction elements. A particular highlight was the announcement of a counselling tool suitable for raising awareness amongst HR managers and executives.
Intensive Discussions and Practical Experience
After the lunch break, the demonstration and practical testing of the prototypes took centre stage. The advisory board members were able to test all systems themselves and share their impressions. The discussions were consistently constructive and characterised by great interest. Topics such as data protection, possible extensions, and the adaptability of the systems were discussed intensively.
A central point was the sustainable usability of the project results. All results will be published completely open source and made available to the community for further development. The advisory board members were thoroughly impressed by the extensive work accomplished over the three project years. It is noteworthy that the project comes at the perfect time: right now, the topic of neurodiversity is gaining ever more significance and attention.
Thanks and Outlook
We thank all members of the project advisory board for their continuous commitment throughout the entire project duration. Special thanks go to the SRH Berufsbildungswerk Dresden for their intensive support, as well as to all students and study participants who made the research possible in the first place.
Even though no direct follow-up project is planned initially, we look optimistically to the future: the open-source publication offers the community the opportunity for further development. The AutARK project concludes in 2025 with a proud review of three years of intensive research work and an optimistic outlook on the sustainable impact of the results.
