Open Day in Barcelona

Feb 8, 2023

Yesterday, a WELCOME Open Day was held on the UPF Poblenou campus. It was co-hosted by the UPF itself, the iSocial Foundation and the Department of Equality and Feminisms of the Catalan Government.

In the Open Day prototypes of technological solutions that aim to improve care and assistance for migrants and refugees at state, regional and municipal levels were presented. The pilot tests that are being carried out within the framework of this project have focused on Greece (at the state level), Catalonia (at the regional level, with the participation of the towns of Terrassa and Cambrils and the Anoia area), and the city of Hamm, in Germany (at the municipal level).

The participants in the Open Day were able to see live demonstrations of the solutions proposed by WELCOME in the form of the MyWELCOME App and the VR settings. They could also see various presentations going into detail about how the platform works and the thought behind it.

WELCOME, through the artificial intelligence of virtual reality and visual analytics technologies, seeks to contribute to overcoming the difficulties migrants and refugees face administrative-wise when arriving in a host country. In this sense, the coordinator of the WELCOME project, Leo Wanner, says: “The effort that public authorities must make to guarantee quality care for migrants and refugees can be alleviated and complemented by the technological solutions provided by the project”.

Eunice Romero, the general director of Migrations, Refuge and Anti-Racism area, integrated into the Generalitat Department of Equality and Feminism, has assured: "the WELCOME project allows us to move towards a friendly welcome, focused on the characteristics and needs of migrant and refugee". In addition, Romero emphasized: "artificial intelligence must be useful for moving towards an egalitarian and free of racism society ", because "the promotion of the artificial intelligence advances from a justice and equity perspective improves the quality of our democracy and the administration’s service capacity ".