auticon, a company that employs adults on the autism spectrum as technology consultants, announced today that it has entered into a collaboration with three of Ohio’s leading companies to make jobs available to the local autism community.
auticon will provide full-time, permanent employment to 50 autistic consultants who will work on technology projects at leading central Ohio companies that include CoverMyMeds, White Castle, and Nationwide.
auticon is a unique social enterprise that offers exceptional quality work within the information technology industry for its customers, such as business analytics, artificial intelligence, software development, and migration, as well as quality assurance and testing.
Autistic adults often have extraordinary cognitive abilities, such as logic, pattern recognition, precision, sustained concentration, and an ability to intuitively spot errors, yet many find it difficult to secure or maintain mainstream employment. Market studies show that only 15 to 20% of autistic people work within the mainstream labor market, often despite being highly qualified. auticon taps into this potential by supporting autistic adults with job coaches and project managers and produces a win-win-win situation for clients, autistic consultants, as well as society.
auticon CEO, Kurt Schöffer, said: “I applaud our partners and congratulate them on their commitment to reducing the extraordinary unemployment rate among autistic adults in Ohio. They are courageous for doing something about it. auticon brings this challenge to other employers as we look to expand throughout Ohio.”
Sir Richard Branson, auticon investor and founder of Virgin Group, said, “We’ve already seen auticon achieve great success in Europe and the U.S. I’m excited to see further expansion in North America. auticon is a business with purpose at its core, and everyone at Virgin is proud to be part of their journey as they continue to make a positive difference to lives around the world.”
Earlier this year, auticon received the Milestones Visionary Employer Award from Ohio-based Milestones Autism Resources.