ASSIST HEIDI Wins Second Place at the 2026 “Digital Humanism in Practice” Award

The ASSIST HEIDI team from the UAS Technikum Wien took second place in the “Digital Humanism in Practice” Award 2026. The award recognized the international and inclusive teaching format “ASSIST HEIDI – Designing and Implementing Assistive Tools for People with Disabilities,” which has now been honored for the second time, following its first-place finish at the Profformance Teacher Award. Co-designers (people with disabilities) and international students work together as equals to develop innovative, individually tailored prototypes—ranging from microcontroller solutions and 3D designs to AI-powered applications. The award ceremony took place at the ORF Center on Küniglberg and was organized by msg Plaut and Austrian Digital Value (ADV) in collaboration with the Association for the Promotion of Digital Humanism.

Digital Inclusion

ASSIST HEIDI puts the Vienna Manifesto for Digital Humanism into practice: Digital participation is made possible by breaking down technical barriers and viewing technologies as tools for self-determination. All project results are published as open source—to ensure global access, transparency, and sustainable impact. The jury particularly commended the consistent involvement of the co-designers as experts on their own lived experiences, the development of open-source-licensed prototypes, and the strong international response to the format.

The successful team behind ASSIST HEIDI: Alija Sabic, Sarah Langer, Martin Deinhofer, Oliver Klein, Natascha Toman, Susanne Buchner-Sabathy, and Erich Schmid (posthumously).

Ethical Innovation

This was the second time the awards ceremony was held; in 2025, first place went to UAS Technikum Wien, together with the Umbrella Organization of Vienna Social Institutions and the Floridsdorf Clinic (WiGeV), and the event honored projects, organizations, and individuals who combine digital innovation with ethical values. In the Project category, the winner was WienKI—the City of Vienna’s human-centered AI platform, which ensures digital sovereignty through clear governance, transparency, and EU/AT data residency, and already has over 2,000 active users.

The ASSIST HEIDI team would like to extend its heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the implementation of the course format and the submission process: Florian Ellinger, Stefan Paschek, Chris Veigl, Stefan Hufnagl, Mohamad Alrifai, Michael Strähle, Jürgen Leidinger, Dora Kertesz, and Silvia Lingo.

Special thanks also go to the International Office, which ensures the future implementation of this course format for students at Technikum Wien and international students funded by ERASMUS+. ASSIST HEIDI is part of the Inclusion International project (prj-no: 33-02), funded by the City of Vienna.

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Fotocredit: msg Plaut AG/APA-Fotoservice/Ben Leitner