The consortium of the trans-national NavigAbile project is composed according to the same principles which allowed the implementation of the Italian pilot phase.
The main technological burden stays on Fondazione Italiana Accenture (project co-ordinator) supported by its technological sponsors (Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and ScanSoft).
The trans-national services will be hosted on the same server that today hosts the prototypal Italian version of the NavigAbile services.
The core of this project is a complete European market validation of the already running services involving Italy, Spain, Sweden and Greece, because different cultural approaches to disabilities and different structure of the health and social systems in different European countries may strongly affect a wide diffusion of the services as they are implemented today.
The setup and start up of the NavigAbile approach requires a strong link to excellence scientific centres to tailor the services to national cultural and social constraints.
In the Italian pilot phase, this role is played by Fondazione Don Gnocchi Onlus which already supplied FIA with its scientific background on AAC and its applications in functional testing.
The enlargement of the services to three additional European countries, Sweden, Greece and Spain, requires the involvement of three other excellence scientific centres to enter their respective countries.
Each national partner is in charge of :
• localisation activities consisting of translation of common texts, preparation of dictionaries, selection of national educational material and websites to include in the validation;
• local technological support and training;
• performing of the market validation phase in its own country within a common operative frame.
Because of the needed role, partners are well known rehabilitation and/or educational centres, deeply experienced in the field, able to handle, to apply, and to validate advanced technological tools.

Fondazione Italiana Accenture, Italy
Project co-ordinator
Fondazione Italiana Accenture, created in 2002, is a non-profit organisation which is aimed exclusively at promoting the highest and most significant experiences and knowledge on innovation, intended as a far-reaching value for the community. Core theme of Fondazione is innovation, in both its technological, scientific and managerial branches and in its positive role of supporting economic, social and cultural development. Fondazione pursues its institutional goals by creating a network with other foundations and with government institutions, private companies and organisations. Fondazione wants to take an active part in collecting the efforts of third parties, in order to gain incisiveness and a tangible contribution to innovation and its applications. Within this project, Fondazione Italiana Accenture will act as the coordinator, managing the project and keeping care of all the technological needs, mainly the localization activities, the setup of the trans-national pilot sites, the training of professional operators and the support to contents providers.

Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus (FDG), Italy
Beneficiary
Founded by don Carlo Gnocchi in Italy to provide care, rehabilitation and social integration for children who lost limbs in the war, the Foundation has gradually expanded the scope of its operations over the years. In the past half-century, it has mainly dealt with handicapped children which suffer of acquired or congenital pathologies, and patients of all ages who require neurological, orthopaedic, cardiac and respiratory care. Since the 1980s, it has expanded to assisting elderly people who cannot look after themselves, and, in the past few years, terminal cancer patients. Recognised as an Institution of Hospitalisation and Scientific Care, the Don Gnocchi Foundation now employs nearly 4,000 people, who are provided with continuous programmes of training and updating: the 78% work in the medical and paramedical fields, while the rest 22% are technicians and administrators. Services are accredited through the National Health Service, in 28 Centres distributed over 9 regions. There is also a Centre in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The structures include: 2 Institutes for Hospitalisation and Scientific Care (in Italian, IRCCS), 22 multi-functional rehabilitation centres, 5 Centres for the elderly in need of assistance (RSA), 1 Hospice for terminal cancer patients, 3 Care Homes, 2 housing communities for the disabled, 41 territorial outpatient rehabilitation clinics, 1 Centre for Training, Orientation and Development, 3634 overnight and day hospital beds, 7000 people cared for each day on average. In April 2003, the President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi awarded to the Foundation the national health system’s gold medal of merit.

DART, Sweden
Beneficiary
DART was established in 1988 as part of a national effort to create regional Computer Resource Centres for disabled people in Sweden. DART is a part of the Regional Children’s Habilitation Unit, in the Section for Neurology, Neuropsychiatry and Habilitation at the Department of Paediatrics of Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg. The service is funded by the county health department in the Västra Götaland Region of western Sweden. DART is based on a trans-disciplinary and user oriented approach. Services are provided for disabled people of all ages – with a dominance of school-aged children - and a wide range of conditions, with a concentration on complex communication and accessibility issues. The services include assessments, counselling, education and R&D activities concerning needs for AAC aids and tailored computer systems.

Universidad de Valencia Estudi General (UVEG), Spain
Beneficiary
The UVEG (University of Valencia Estudi General) is a historical Spanish university with more 500 years of existence. UVEG is nowadays opened to every branch of teaching, research and culture with careers and centers about Basic Science and Technology, Social Sciences, Health Sciences, Education and Humanities spread over four campus. Unidad de Investigacion ACCESO (Research Unit ACCESO ) is a small group created in 1994 which works within the Department of Development and Educational Psychology of the UVEG. It is formed by a group of people with different professional backgrounds (psychologists, pedagogues, engineers...) that evolves along time to accommodate to the needs of the projects being carried out each year and which includes several full time lecturers of the different university departments. ACCESO focus, is placed on projects where these three main areas appear in combination: study of the disability, new technologies (ICT) and learning processes.