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About Us

Who We Are

We are an “organization” of (former-)students working with professor Anara Sandygulova. Our mission is to build practical, scalable tools and applications that help children with ASD or other special needs and their families.

The current version of April began as a three-person initiative focused on robot-assisted therapy and, since summer 2025, has grown into a 35+ -member community.

We are a part of the Human-Robot Interaction lab led by the professor.

What We Do

April consists of four core projects:

  • April Robots – robot-assisted therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
  • ezPECS – picture-exchange communication system for non-verbal children.
  • Kidio – parents-centered platform for …
  • April Hub – the central hub of the ecosystem with …

There currently are 7 teams:

  • April Robots Online – works on the online part of the April Robots project.
  • April Robots Offline – works on the offline part of the April Robots project.
  • Cozmo – works with Cozmo robots for the April Robots project.
  • Academy – works on April Hub core.
  • ezPECS
  • Kidio
  • Branding/PR/SMM

How We Work

This section explains how we operate so that newcomers and external partners can understand our management model. It describes our guiding principles, organization structure, different roles and meetings. It also explains how we organize digital assets on our Drive using the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives).

Organization Principles

  • Mission First – Technology, organisation structure, and management processes all serve one purpose: to help us improve the lives of children and their families.
  • Clear Task Ownership – Every task has a single accountable owner. Ownership reduces ambiguity and accelerates delivery.
  • One Team – One Lead – Team leads are responsible for outcomes, not just activities. They coordinate and manage their team’s work, represent their project and hold responsibility for it.

Work Ethics

  • Read all work-related messages and announcements carefully.
  • Keep good team communication – Communicate with your team and across teams. Be responsible and respectful.
  • Peer learning – Be open to ask and answer peers. Consult with others when you are not sure.
  • Be proactive – Listen and suggest ideas. Contribute to discussions. Recommend improvements.
  • Flexibility – Every member should be open to work towards common goals even if it is outside of their professional domain sometimes.
  • Documentation – Keep well-maintained documentation of/for your work (memos, tasks).

Organization Structure

Core Leadership:

  • Professor Anara – main supervisor; responsible for each team’s plans, global strategy, grants, external partnerships, and any core decisions.
  • Marat – co-supervisor of ezPECS and Kidio teams.
  • Olzhas – co-supervisor of April Robots teams; HR; technical lead of April Robots and April Hub projects.

Team roles:

  • Team lead
    • Responsible for functionality and maturity (outcomes) of the team.
    • Coordinates and manages their team’s work (meetings organization, meetings agenda, meeting notes, task management).
    • Keeps up the communication between the team and supervisors.
    • Has more authority over project-scoped decisions than members, but should not stand above members.
  • Team member
    • Primarily works on project(s).
    • May be involved in another team partially.
    • May be re-assigned to another team altogether.

Workflow

Each team has a meeting with the professor every 1-2 weeks. During this meeting, the team shows their progress, discusses core issues and plans out next sprint tasks. Sprint typically lasts until the next meeting with the professor. In between meetings with the professor (aka supervisor meetings), the leader checks on their team through short “daily” meetings (preferrably 2-3 times a week).

Communication (April Robots)

  • Discord/Discord DM – work-related communication.
  • Telegram/Telegram DM – not work-related communication; or urgent messages.

For Leaders

TODO: detailed info on meetings, taking meeting notes, templates, memos?, facilitator, note taker

Google Drive

We use the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) to organize digital assets on our drive:

  • Projects: April Robots, ezPECS, Kidio, etc.
  • Areas: Ongoing domains such as Branding, Management.
  • Resources: Shared ML models, libraries, design assets, research docs, not belonging to a specific project.
  • Archives: Completed or deprecated documents, preserved for traceability.

TODO: add link to the drive