Meet the four winners of 13M, the first nationwide digital inclusion gas pedal created by Banque des Territoires, Groupe SOS, H7 and Pulse.
Hello Eric, can you tell us a bit about yourself? 👋
My name is Éric GAYRAUD, and I’m the founder and director of LISIO. I’m a computer scientist by training. For fifteen years, I worked as a project manager in the e-health sector, focusing on the use of technology to assist disabled and elderly people. My research was partly funded by the ANR – the French National Research Agency.
I founded LISIO 5 years ago to give everyone the freedom to access online information and services easily and sustainably. To achieve this, we develop and market solutions and services for digital inclusion and sobriety. I’m also the structure’s technical director.
Could you introduce LISIO to us and tell us about your starting point?
Today, most information is available on the Internet. When we want to train, access healthcare or go on vacation, the possibilities are greatly restricted if we have difficulty accessing the web. In total, almost 50% of the French population has difficulty with digital technology.
At LISIO, we believe that digital technology should adapt to people, not the other way around. So we develop solutions and services that make websites more inclusive and eco-friendly.
Our LISIO Web Engagé solution offers a personalized display of information for every web user, whatever their specific needs: disabilities, digital inexperience, senior difficulties, location in low-speed areas, foreign languages, dyslexia, color blindness, and so on.
In addition to digital inclusion, we’re also working on ecological issues. Thanks to various tools, we enable our customers to measure and reduce the carbon impact of their website.
The development of LISIO Web Engagé is the cumulative result of 8 years of research, and we’re already working on the next versions.
How does the solution work?
The “LISIO Web Engagé” solution integrates automatically into any Internet site / intranet / business application in less than 5 minutes, without any redesign. First, we analyze the website; then, the site owner integrates a dedicated line of code; finally, we activate the solution on his or her website.
From each page of the equipped website, the user selects his parameters via the dedicated LISIO button. We offer more 50 presets and 100 possible adaptations which can be cross-referenced with each other to offer a multitude of customizations and thus create unique profiles in the image of each visitor: dark mode, translation, adapted fonts and contrasts, loading speed, enlarged click zones, etc.
The LISIO Web Engagé solution currently equips over 250 websites for local authorities and companies such as mutual insurance companies, social landlords and tourist offices.
What is your definition of digital inclusion?
In my opinion, the word is ill-chosen. The term “digital inclusion” refers to digital exclusion, but in reality, the problems are not only on the side of those excluded, and not everything is so clear-cut. There are a multitude of cases (need for comfort, adaptation, difficulties, various obstacles, disabilities…).
The real question is: who do we want to adapt digital technology to?
What do you expect from the 13M program?
With the 13M program, I hope to raise awareness of this issue among both public and private players.
Over the next few months, we hope to accelerate our growth through fund-raising, advertising and networking.
Today, there are 1.8 billion websites in the world, so we’re at the beginning of the adventure. User feedback has been very positive, so we need to roll out our solutions and services even further.
What can we wish you for the future?
A global awareness, because every action counts!
Today, each new installation of the LISIO Web Engagé solution enables us to identify new issues and develop new functionalities. We’re doubling our customer volume every year, and we want to maintain and build on this momentum.
Selena Miniscalco
