Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa has worked with Mondragon Elements on the development of a ceramic hob for blind or partially sighted people

Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa has worked with Mondragon Elements on the development of a ceramic hob for blind or partially sighted people

The new ceramic hob model was developed collaboratively over three years between Eika, Copreci, Fagor Electrónica, Sareteknika, Centro Stirling, Mondragon University, the Clúster del Hogar de Euskadi (Basque Cluster Association of the Home Appliance Industry), the ONCE Tiflotechnology and Innovation Centre and participation of chef Angel Palacios and Begisare.

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In an increasingly technological environment, sometimes innovation is needed to ensure that the innovation itself is inclusive. It's the great paradox that lies hidden behind tiflotechnology. Or, in other words, following the adaptation of uses and technical advances for its use by persons with blindness or serious visual impairment. This is the case, for example, with the Kitchen Eye ceramic glass developed by Mondragon Components, created to give a greater level of autonomy to this group in its own home.

During recent years, touch technology has allowed kitchen manufacturers to simplify their exterior designs, among other things, and to facilitate cleaning as much as possible. Something that is much appreciated.. even if we don't have vision problems. If so, and it is the case for 200 million people according to the World Health Organisation, this handicap makes daily tasks enormously difficult. And the same thing happens to those who have difficulty with fine motor control, as they lack the ability to manage a graphic interface.

Thus, the challenge was to coordinate digitisation and social commitment in the development of a standard ceramic hob at an affordable price, but which was also capable satisfying the special needs of these groups. To do this, the specialised company, in giving innovative responses to the Mondragon Corporation cooperatives linked to the white goods, home comforts and electronics sectors, had to ensure that the household appliances could interpret orders given to them from outside their control panel. And to achieve this, they opted to use the voice.

The result is an apparently normal induction cooker that can be used indiscriminately of the mode, or through a mobile application with voice support. The interaction between the household applicance and the user is so easy that all you need to do is 'dictate' the order so that the ceramic hob switches on or off, adjusts the temperature or monitors the time, among other functions. In addition, the cooking hob can talk, and is therefore capable of answering questions related to the cooking process, such as which burners are being used at any particular time and at what intensity.

In oder to guarantee that the model is adapted to the actual user's needs of the groups for which it has been designed, integrated cooperationin the industrial division of the Mondragon Cooperation has turned the project into a true collaborative undertaking right from the beginning, arising from a meeting at a congress on design between ONCE specialists and collaborators from the Components Lecture Hall of Mondragon Unibertsity, who put the idea forward to the cooperative. Alongside both entities, over the course of the three years it took to develop the Kitchen Eye, there was also participation from the Guipuzkoa Association for those affected by retinitis pigmentosa (begisare), and blind chef Ángel Palacios, promotor of the blind cooking teaching approach, who had tested the prototypes and made suggestions during the whole process. In the technical part, the firm has had the collaboration and assessment of the Tiflotechnology and Innovation Centre of ONCE (CTI), Stirling Centre (Mondragon's own Components centre specialising in research and development of products aimed at the efficient generation and use of energy in the home), Eika, Copreci, Fagor Electrónica, Sareteknika and the Clúster del Hogar de Euskadi (Acede).