Autism Speaks has selected the following winners to share in the $30,000 final prize of the Autism Employment Connector Challenge. The winners are:
1st Place
- Zensory-Blissful Job Searching for Autistic Adults, submitted by Team Screen Queens (Beatriz Ramos, Sindhu Bhairavi Kannan and T.H.) - $15,000
- Zensory's design proposal for a web extension and a simple website featured elements including a resume maker, video, and image uploads. Its compatibility with all popular job platforms would provide tools to help adults on the autism spectrum apply across multiple job boards.
2nd Place
- JobQuest: One goal. One passion. Inclusivity!, submitted by Carlotta Granholm's team (Carlotta Granholm and Wenyan Liu) - $10,000
- The web-based job board design would aim to address the issues with miscommunication and information processing that exist for autistic people and employers during the job search process. The solution would also encourage job seekers to upload an existing resume, upload a video resume, or create a new resume with the help of a prompt. The resume builder would allow the job seeker to detail accomplishments at both paid and unpaid opportunities, highlighting both equally in the final design of the resume.
3rd Place
- Autism Employment Matching Engine (AEME), submitted by Rebecca Beam's team (Rebecca Beam and Hilary Kokenda) - $5,000
- Autistic individuals would interact with this design with the assistance of a Bot that would guide candidates through creating and maintaining an account. The process would also be gamified to incentivize candidates to complete, check, and update their accounts. Candidate profiles could include skills, experience, accommodations, and personal interests.
For the winners of this challenge, a representative from HeroX will be in touch to payout your final prize.
Lastly, we want to thank all participants for their solutions! We thoroughly enjoyed reading through each of your submissions.
