A team comprising final year student Holly Au Ho-yi from the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Special Education Programme at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), was awarded first place at the Hong Kong Social Enterprise Challenge, an inter-collegiate competition organised by the Center for Entrepreneurship of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and sponsored by the Home Affairs Bureau.

SNAILDY, formed by students from City University of Hong Kong, is a special educational needs (SEN) support system designed for primary and secondary schools. It aims to reduce administrative procedures and the workload of SEN Coordinators (SENCO) and teaching staff through the application of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud technology.

The team invited Holly to be its Customer Service Manager last year, drawing on her experience in special education. “SENCO don’t have enough time to support SEN students due to lack of resources and loads of administrative tasks. On average, each SENCO needs to manage around SEN 100 students, and spend 70% of their time doing paper work for submission to the Education Bureau,” said Holly.

The team has come up with a one-stop solution for SENCO to integrate information of SEN students, design individual education plans, manage teaching resources and obtain SEN service quotations. This provides SENCO with enhanced efficiency in handling administrative tasks, which helps relieve work pressure, and enables them to spend more time on teaching and caring for SEN students.

Professor Kenneth Sin Kuen-fung at the Department of Special Education and Counselling of EdUHK served as the team’s Faculty Advisor. “Thanks to Professor Sin’s guidance, we learned how to set priorities for the company and improve our services to better meet the needs of the SEN community,” said Holly. “SEN students are talented in specific areas and can be our future valuable resources. We hope to support their growth, and let the public better understand the uniqueness of SEN children, and promote an inclusive culture among communities, families, and schools in Hong Kong.”

In the coming months, SNAILDY will launch an enhanced version of the existing quotation system tailored for SENCO, with a consolidated list of service providers, such as speech therapists, interest classes and play groups, and their respective quotations. This enables users to source SEN service providers more efficiently and effectively. They will also work with the Centre for Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Education of EdUHK to deliver a talk on SEN support for parents.

To learn more about SNAILDY, please visit here.