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Team meeting at auticon.
A new data perspective: IT company employs people on the autism spectrum About 85 per cent of people with autism in Germany are not in permanent employment, even though their abilities and education actually make them an asset for digitalisation. The auticon GmbH wants to change that: the international IT services company exclusively employs people within the autism spectrum as IT consultants and software developers. TEXT: JESSICA HOLZHAUSEN I PHOTOS: AUTICON GMBH
“The most thrilling thing is that our colleagues are very good in thinking in a very structured way and discovering patterns,” says project manager Daniel Willkomm about his colleagues with autism. Working with a huge amount of data and analytics, therefore, are auticon’s core skills – from classic database analysis to big data and artificial intelligence. The collaboration from people with and without autism brings together two different perspectives, and project manager Daniel Willkomm is clear when breaking down the benefits of neurodiversity: “We often need a bird’s eye view. For my colleagues, this is not necessary and they often prefer to look at the complete data in detail and start from 74 | Issue 73 | April 2019
there.” Especially when it comes to AI, the consultants’ and developers’ IT affinity plays an important role – when developing AI-programs as well as working with different programming languages. Many employees never finished their education and, beforehand, often had problems on the job market. auticon works with job centres and doctors, but above that, auticon has become well-known as a good employer among people with autism. A good work environment comes first. “We want to integrate autistic people into the mainstream job market. We are no sheltered workshop, but a company with a commercial purpose,” says
Heike Gramkow. Next to Dieter Hahn and Ralph Metzroth, she is one of three managing directors heading the German branch of the company since early 2019. auticon was originally founded by Dirk Müller-Remus, himself the father of a son with autism. “We want to normalise the topic of autism,” says Gramkow. That also means that auticon consultants work directly with clients on site. A job coach prepares the clients for the collaboration: “They communicate the consultant’s individual traits and needs, for example, not to shake hands – contrary to customs.” In Germany, the concept was very successful at seven locations, so auticon expanded internationally and today, has offices in London, Paris, Zurich, Edinburgh, Milan, L.A. and Montreal. The offices recruit and employ their own consultants and deploy them to work with clients. www.auticon.com