Startup created by a Romanian in France helps children with autism learn emotions and develop social skills

A startup created by a Romanian woman in France aims to revolutionize the process of developing socio-emotional skills. The app, named Emoface, allows users to learn emotions and develop social skills by interacting with intelligent 3D avatars.

Adela Barbulescu has turned her doctoral thesis in computer science from the Grenoble Alpes University in France into Emoface - a startup that has developed an innovative digital tool with a real impact on the lives of people with difficulties in social interactions, for example for children with autism.

The primary beneficiaries of Emoface are therapists and patients training their social skills. In the long run, users will become more autonomous, their communication will improve, and they will be able to manage their emotions better, especially in moments of frustration and annoyance.

“Usually, when teaching children a new emotion, specialists use icons, printed images or photos with people who show joy, for example, or fear, but there is a difference from what happens in real life, where everything is happening very fast, and there is a lot of information to process. Therefore, professionals need dynamic, controllable materials with complex content, which will allow them to simulate what is happening in reality. And Emoface responds to this need through playful activities that allow interaction with 3D avatars. We basically bring a new, stimulating working methodology that uses avatars piloted by artificial intelligence, which generates gestures and facial expressions so that the interaction is as natural as possible,” Emoface founder Adela Barbulescu explained.

The first developed app features over 150 exercises. Its entire content of 3D animations with expressive avatars, which reproduce facial expressions, is generated randomly, which prevents memorizing the answers in tests used, for example, to recognize emotions.

The platform was developed with financial support from team members, but also through incubation programs such as SATT Linksium (2017-2019) and foundations and national development programs (BPIFrance) or Innovators for Children (2020-2021). The estimated investment required for the development of the next Emoface applications by 2023 exceeds EUR 0.5 million.

For now, the first app, which works on basic emotions, has 600 beta users in 5 countries. After two years of testing in France, the application will also get a Romanian version in April.

(Photo source: Emoface)