GENDER STI will innovatively contribute to solve complex problems associated to the integration of the gender perspective in STI dialogues with third countries. By adopting a design thinking human-centric problem-solving approach, GENDER STI will investigate how gender equality is taken into consideration at different levels of international cooperation dialogues in the area of STI, between the EU Member States and Associated Countries, and a selected set of 10 third countries, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, India, South Korea and China. This one of a kind consortium of EU and third countries partners will have a meaningful impact in accelerating the integration of gender equality in STI dialogues with third countries. The investigation will be conducted along the three objectives of the Gender Equality strategy in EU R&I, i.e. gender equality in scientific careers, gender in decision making, and gender in R&I content. Built on the work done by ERA-related groups on gender equality and international cooperation, as well as EU funded projects, GENDER STI will provide a mapping and comparative analysis on gender equality in STI bilateral and multilateral agreements with the selected third countries. In addition, the project will deploy a series of Co-Design Lab workshops to create the environment to co-design solutions regarding gender inequalities in STI dialogues. As a result, the project will create the GENDER STI Community of Practice that will help to scale up the experience of gender equality in STI at a European and international level, and the European Observatory on Gender in STI, which is unique of its kind in Europe and will serve as a hub for gender equality in STI dialogues, incorporating all knowledge and materials resulting from the project. These actionable insights will feed the process to formulate recommendations to enhance the integration of gender equality in STI dialogues with third countries.

Analysis of the current status, interviews with strategic technology, evaluation of the technologies/architectures, evaluation of the process model, elaboration of additions/improvements, reports/recommendations.

Children between the ages of 7 and 15 are very interested and inquisitive in MINT topics (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology). Primarily in elementary school age or before puberty, girls are just as interested in MINT topics as boys. It is important to maintain and strengthen this interest, especially that of the girls. The world of technology, computer science, natural science and mathematics is fascinating for children and young people. And we want to promote this fascination. The children and young people want to learn the basics of computer science and programming / coding in a playful and creative way. It is very important for this target group that they are playfully accompanied through the learning process. The children and adolescents respond particularly well to young adults as trainers, who bring the content closer to them in age-appropriate language. In our courses, a pair of trainers is always used and the content is chosen so that there is something suitable and interesting for everyone. The children experience the world of programming and robotics through self-programmed games and animations and learn that programming is creative and exciting. This increases our motivation and enthusiasm for the MINT area. Programming languages ​​and robotics have only recently become part of the current curricula for grades 3 to 8 at Austrian schools. This also means that the training of pedagogues in this area is still in its infancy. Additional offers for interested students are usually only available in large cities, children and young people in rural areas are less accessible. The pandemic also makes it more difficult (lockdown or temporary closure individual classes / schools) holding on-site workshops since March of this year. The Austrian labor market urgently needs (young) specialists from the MINT area. The need for skilled workers in these areas is high and continues to grow. Early promotion of enthusiasm for MINT subjects, the anchoring of interdisciplinary and digital skills in all training courses are important levers for securing the future of Austria.

Over the next 10 years, lower birth rate students born in 1999-2010 will graduate and enter their professional career or university. The retiring workforce will not be completely replaceable by those. If nothing changes, the Austrian workforce will drop to 77% in the next 20 years and to even 65% among the under 40s. At the same time, the demand for IT professionals will be increasing, with a dramatic impact on the industrial and economic region. To counteract this, we want to inspire young women and men with playful coding activities to choose IT related jobs or studies. The number of young people and women in particular choosing to study in ICT fields is decreasing dramatically. To address this gender bias at an early stage, one of the goals of this proposal is to make coding more accessible and attractive for young females. Therefore, we will use our educational app Pocket Code, which is developed by the Austrian free and open source project Catrobat, initiated at Graz University of Technology. The app Pocket Code allows the creation of programs in a playful way and directly on phones. To make the app more interesting and attractive for our target group of young women between 12 and 15 years old, we are planning to extend the app with the option to program embroidery machines. In this way, self-created patterns and designs can be stitched on t-shirts, pants or even bags. With Pocket Code, the embroidery machines will get programmable. Patterns and different forms can be created using a visual programming language. As a result, teenagers have something they can be proud of, something they can wear, and they can show to others. For this purpose, a new version of Pocket Code for pattern embroidery will be developed, which should attract especially young women and girls. Furthermore, appropriate stitch/coding courses will be offered at schools. A special emphasis will be given to a gender-equitable conception to consider different requirements, needs and interests of our target group. These courses will be realized together with our partner "bits4kids". On the one hand they are intended to show young women new ways of using technology, with a lot of fun in a sustainable way. On the other hand, young men get inspired through this digital design process to take part in textile handicraft lessons. The cooperation with the fashion shop "Apflbutzn" will help us to picture the whole workflow. The Apflbutzn team will take part in the last units and bring their embroidery machine. Thus, the teenagers are able to see how their programmed patterns are directly embroidered on T-shirts and bags. In addition, “Apflbutzn” will create an economical and sustainable concept, which can be integrated into existing (web-)shops and processes. In future, the pattern-files can be sent via mail and the embroidered products can be picked up or shipped. The project’s outcomes will be 1) a new version of the Pocket Code app, which includes the stitch extension, 2) a gender-equitable framework for stitch/coding courses, and 3) insights into the practical implementation for shops. As a result, the new Pocket Code Stitch App and the published gender-appropriate "guidelines" should show how young women could be motivated and, thus, they should serve as a guideline for others (Fab-Labs, schools, etc.).

Analysis of status, assessment of technologies and architectures as well as process models, elaboration of amendments and improvements.

Right-to-left language support for Pocket Code. Young refugees from Syria or Afghanistan, where languages are used that are written from right to left such as Arabic, Pashto or Dari, can learn how to program their own apps directly on their smartphones. Since most teenage refugees own smartphones, and because no additional hardware is required, Pocket Code provides a sustainable, long-term and thus pragmatic way to let them acquire economically significant skills in a fun and easy way. The challenges posed by the project come, on the one hand, from the required long-term collaboration of developers who do not know about right-to-left languages with developers who are native speakers of Arabic, Pashto, or Dari, and on the other hand because right-to-left languages are not sufficiently supported on mobile phones compared to other languages.

No One Left Behind has been created to take advantages of the opportunities and the potential of digital games to tackle challenges in the education sector. This project will create a new generation of Pocket Code (a mobile media-rich programming environment for children) to unlock inclusive gaming creation and experiences in formal learning situations, underpin meaningful learning and support children to realise their full potential; by transferring game mechanics, dynamics, assets and in-game analytics from nonleisure digital games SMEs, into Pocket Code, which also will be adapted to academic curricula.

Using sources from the internet and semantic data provided by user communities in Web2.0 style, a system that can intelligently extract information for user needs will be analyzed, designed and a prototype implemented

Ziel des Projektes ist es für die Zeitressourcenplanung in Dienstleistungsunternehmen, Modelle, Methoden und Softwarewerkzeuge zu entwickeln, die es erlauben aufbauend auf Standardbausteinen einfach an die jeweilige Situation angepasste Werkzeuge zu entwickeln; bei der Weiterentwicklung der Standardbausteine sicherzustellen, dass diese Adaptionen mitgepflegt werden, um eine neuerliche Anpassung überflüssig zu machen; auf die jeweils adaptierten Bausteine handlungsrelevant Wissen für die Planer zur Verfügung stellen, um auch komplexe Planungsaufgaben auch praktisch bewältigbar zu machen.

Als Anwendungs- und Testobjekt soll ein Multi-Media-Replayer für Mobile Endgeräte entwickelt werden: Radio und TV Sendungen (aktuelle oder vor kurzem ausgestrahlte News, Interviews, Dokumentationen, Talkshows, Musiksendungen wie Starmania, ...) sind über eine Suche in den Wörtern, die von den Personen der Sendung ausgesprochen wurden oder im Titel der Sendung vorgekommen sind, auf einem Mobiltelefon abrufbar. Motto: Google für TV und Radio am Handy.

Ontology Engineering in the Context of Data Extraction In this part studies and research on approaches to ontology engineering are investigated to generate a basic framework that is designed for further reuse. Ontology-based Intelligent Extraction New methods for data extraction from non-HTML documents, in particular on non-structured formats, are studied. The research is mainly conducted on two formats, namely PDF and plain text, the latter mainly in the context of 3270 applications. Novel Semantic Technologies in Wrapping In this part the main goal is to map data instances that have been extracted from e.g. HTML documents to ontologies such as RDF-Schema or OWL. The declarative logic-based language Elog of the Visual Wrapper is ideally suited for tight integration with ontology repositories. Existing RDF repositories like Jena, Sesame and KAON and various existing RDF query languages are analyzed, and the APIs of the libraries are studied to explore ways how to connect the Lixto Visual Wrapper to these repositories. Wrapper Adaptation In this part the goal is to study automatic and semi-automatic repair technologies that change a wrapper accordingly to major structural changes on the underlying Web sites. Human-Machine Communication: htmlButler htmlButler is intended to be a commodity client server based tool through which general web users can visually specify to be informed via Email about changes in a certain area of interest on a Web page.