The awards have valued immersive virtual reality projects that improve people's mental health, well-being and education while contributing to breaking the digital divide, as they make this technology accessible and affordable for everyone.
The social innovation projects with virtual and immersive technology of the Social Digital Lab, the Social Innovation Laboratory of Suara Cooperativa, have been recognized with the Palma de Castelldefels Gran Margalló 2024 award for their contribution to improving people's well-being, health and education, especially those who are in a situation of vulnerability.
In addition, the city council, which is the one who awards these awards, has also taken into account that these projects help to break the digital, social and economic gaps, since they make this technology accessible and affordable for all people, regardless of their age or social reality.
“For 12 years, we have been driving innovation in the 287 services that we have as a way to do things differently and rethink how we are doing things in social services and, above all, to understand that social services must be preventive, predictive and stop being reactive”, explained Bàrbara Outeiro, head of Open Innovation at Suara Cooperativa, during the awards ceremony that took place on December 15.
Outeiro also highlighted how the Social Digital Lab is implementing virtual and immersive reality to improve the physical and emotional well-being of people who are in a situation of dependency, the mental health of those who have suffered a migratory bereavement or, simply, to overcome phobias.
“Virtuality and immersiveness have allowed us to understand therapeutic support in a very different way and we are doing it for the mental health of children, young people or the elderly. We have been doing it for five years and it seems to be working very well”, assessed Outeiro.
Virtual reality projects
Currently, the Social Digital Lab has four projects underway with immersive virtual reality to improve the mental health, physical, emotional and cognitive well-being of people in different age groups:
- Revive: this project, which is being developed with the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa and the technology company Broomx, is aimed at elderly people in a situation of aging with cognitive impairment. Through different reminiscence and memory exercises, they help to improve their cognitive skills while doing exercises to promote their physical well-being. In addition, the sessions are held in groups, which helps them to strengthen their communication skills or weave a relational network to combat unwanted loneliness. All of this contributes to the participants also improving their emotional well-being.
- Immersive mindfulness: it is a therapeutic accompaniment that includes immersion in mindfulness techniques to preserve the mental health and emotional well-being of workers who experience episodes of stress or anxiety. It also serves as a prevention therapy against the possibility of developing disorders linked to burnout.
- Emotia pilot test: these are group sessions with accompaniment by people from the field of psychology trained in trauma therapy where the participants, young people and adolescents, work on managing stressful situations, traumatic episodes or personal development, among others.
- Resilient Project: This is a study that is being carried out in collaboration with the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu to analyze how immersive reality can improve the mental health of young people who have been taken out of care and who have a diagnosed disorder.
In addition to these projects, Suara Cooperativa is also using immersive reality with children, adolescents and young people to improve educational skills such as language, communication skills or mathematics.
The Social Digital Lab, innovation at the service of people
These are not the only innovative or disruptive technology projects that are being explored by the Social Digital Lab, but it also has pilot tests with robotics, sensors, artificial intelligence, among others.
Following the model of European innovation laboratories, the Social Digital Lab creates spaces for co-creation and open innovation where we collaborate with companies and startups in the technology sector, universities, research institutes, public administration and citizens to develop innovative and technological responses to the main current social challenges. We then test these solutions with both workers and those served by our services to ensure that they are effective and respond to a real need.
This way of working at the Social Digital Lab, known as the quadruple helix, has led to Suara Cooperativa obtaining the Catalonia Exponential Leader’24 seal awarded by Acció, which recognizes it as a leading company in disruptive technology in Catalonia.
In a world in constant evolution, at Suara Cooperativa we put technology at the service of people to break the existing social, economic and digital gaps with the aim of making innovation accessible and affordable for everyone.
