Peppo

peppo

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv : Authors (1) Linda Pigureddu, University of Turin, Italy, 332079@edu.unito.it; (2) Cristina Gena, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Turin, Italy, cristina.gena@unito.it. Table of Links Introduction The Project Memes Conclusion and References CONCLUSION The analysis of the interactions and dialogues that took place during the therapeutic laboratory for autonomies endorsed with the inclusion of the Pepper robot provided an interesting perspective on the communication dynamics of children in the lab. The results obtained showed the effectiveness of the robot in promoting autonomy and functional acquisition, demonstrating that the therapeutic method based on assistive robotics is a valuable resource to support the rehabilitation needs of communication and social skills of autistic children. The analysis highlights new possibilities for their engagement and active participation as a co-designer, as we already experienced in the past with neuro-typical children [19], representing an innovative opportunity to promote the development and wellness of autistic people and opening to new perspectives for therapeutic intervention more aware of the needs of autistic minds. In conclusion, this paper highlights the need to provide the robot with the ability of adapt to the children’s peculiarity and features and sharing her/his vocabulary, especially by recognizing and using memes during interactions, to inspire greater trust in children and allowing the use of common slang, already in use with classmates, allowing them to consider Pepper a peer and effectively insert it in the role of mediator. In addition, it would allow children to use a simplified type of communication during meetings to compensate for the typical communication deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders. In the future we will work in this directions (co-design, user’s adaptations, using and recognizing memes during children-robot communication) having the robot able to communicate and express adapting to user tastes and preferences and and try again to field a real-world evaluation that takes into account the effectiveness of different levels of user adaptation [23]. REFERENCE [1] M. Biondi e M. Maj, DSM-5: diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: text revision, 5. ed. Milano: Raffaello Cortina. [2] E. Hollander, R. Hagerman, e C. Ferretti, Textbook of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Second Edition. American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2022. [3] ISS - Istituto superiore di sanità, «Osservatorio Nazionale Autismo», OssNA. https://osservatorionazionaleautismo.iss.it [4] P. Pennisi et al., «Autism and social robotics: A systematic review», Autism Research, vol. 9, fasc. 2, pp. 165–183, 2016, doi: 10.1002/aur.1527. [5] S. Shamsuddin, H. Yussof, S. Mohamed, e F. A. Hanapiah, «Design and Ethical Concerns in Robotic Adjunct Therapy Protocols for Children with Autism», Procedia Computer Science, vol. 42, pp. 9–16, gen. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2014.11.027. [6] K. Dautenhahn e I. Werry, «Towards Interactive Robots in Autism Therapy: Background, Motivation and Challenges», Pragmatics & Cognition, vol. 12, pp. 1–35, giu. 2004, doi: 10.1075/pc.12.1.03dau. [7] C. Li, Q. Jia, e Y. Feng, «Human-Robot Interactoin Design for Robot-Assisted Intervention for Children with Autism Based on E-S Theory», in 2016 8th International Conference on Intelligent Human-Machine Systems and Cybernetics (IHMSC), Hangzhou, China: IEEE, ago. 2016, pp. 320–324. doi: 10.1109/IHMSC.2016.103. [8] A. Peca et al., «Robot Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism Disorders: Measuring Ethical Acceptability», IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag., vol. 35, fasc. 2, pp. 54–66, giu. 2016, doi: 10.1109/MTS.2016.2554701. [9] B. Robins, K. Dautenhahn, e J. Dubowski, «Does appearance matter in the interaction of children with autism with a humanoid robot?», IS, vol. 7, fasc. 3, pp. 479–512, nov. 2006, doi:10.1075/is.7.3.16rob. [10] E. S. Kim, «Robots for social skills therapy in autism: evidence and designs toward clinical utility», 2013, doi: 10.13140/2.1.3038.2083. [11] «Autismo», Neuraxpharm Italia. https://www.neuraxpharm.com/it/disordini/autismo [12] L. Hull, K. V. Petrides, e W. Mandy, «The Female Autism Phenotype and Camouflaging: a Narrative Review», Rev J Autism Dev Disord, vol. 7, fasc. 4, pp. 306–317, dic. 2020, doi: 10.1007/s40489-020-00197-9. [13] D. Cohen et al., «NAO, a humanoid robot as a therapeutic mediator for young people with autism». [14] Cristina Gena, Claudio Mattutino, Andrea Maieli, Elisabetta Miraglio, Giulia Ricciardiello, Rossana Damiano, Alessandro Mazzei: Autistic Children's Mental Model of an Humanoid Robot. UMAP (Adjunct Publication) 2021: 128-129 [15] Rossana Damiano, Cristina Gena, Andrea Maieli, Claudio Mattutino, Alessandro Mazzei, Elisabetta Miraglio, Giulia Ricciardiello: UX Personas for Defining Robot's Character and Personality 213-216. IUI Workshops 2022: 213-216. [16] Cristina Gena, Claudio Mattutino, Stefania Brighenti, Andrea Meirone, Francesco Petriglia, Loredana Mazzotta, Federica Liscio, Matteo Nazzario, Valeria Ricci, Camilla Quarato, Cesare Pecone, Giuseppe Piccinni: et al., Sugar, Salt & Pepper - Humanoid robotics for autism, in Joint Proceedings of the ACM IUI 2021 Workshops co-located with 26th ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM IUI 2021), College Station, United States, April 13-17, 2021, D. Glowacka e V. R. Krishnamurthy, A c. di, in CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol. 2903. CEUR-WS.org, 2021. [17] Cristina Gena, Rossana Damiano, Claudio Mattutino, Alessandro Mazzei, Andrea Meirone, Loredana Mazzotta, Matteo Nazzario, Valeria Ricci, Stefania Brighenti, Federica Liscio, Francesco Petriglia: Preliminary results of a therapeutic lab for promoting autonomies in autistic children. arXiv, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2305.02982. [18] B. C. Carbo, «The Use of Social Stories with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders», University of Delaware ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, Newark, DE, 2005. [Online]. Disponibile su: https://udspace.udel.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/cd5e8850-e57c-41d2-a7b4ac5e25a4b659/content [19] V. Cietto, C. Gena, I. Lombardi, C. Mattutino and C. Vaudano, "Co-designing with kids an educational robot," 2018 IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts (ARSO), Genova, Italy, 2018, pp. 139-140, doi: 10.1109/ARSO.2018.8625810. [20] A. Mousa, «Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation. The Power of Talk in a Digital Age», Questions de communication, fasc. 34, Art. fasc. 34, dic. 2018, doi:10.4000/questionsdecommunication.16891. [21] H.-M. Chiang e M. Carter, «Spontaneity of Communication in Individuals with Autism», J Autism Dev Disord, vol. 38, fasc. 4, pp. 693–705, apr. 2008, doi: 10.1007/s10803-007-0436-7. [22] Gena, C., Cena, F., Vernero, F., Grillo, P. The evaluation of a social adaptive website for cultural events. User Model User-Adap Inter 23, 89–137 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-012-9129-9 [23] Gena, Cristina, and Ilaria Torre. "The importance of adaptivity to provide onboard services: A preliminary evaluation of an adaptive tourist information service onboard vehicles." Applied Artificial Intelligence 18.6 (2004): 549-580.

The Power of Memes: The Pepper Robot as a Communicative Aid for Autistic Children - Conclusion

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Linda Pigureddu, University of Turin, Italy, 332079@edu.unito.it; (2) Cristina Gena, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Turin, Italy, cristina.gena@unito.it. Table of Links Introduction The Project Memes Conclusion and References MEMES The qualitative analysis of the material produced during the project underlines that there is a linguistic barrier between Pepper and the children because Pepper's dialogue system was written by adults, while children talk through a vocabulary peculiar to their age. What’s more relevant is that the participants integrate the use of memes into everyday conversations, which is quite surprising, even considering that’s common practice between teens and pre-teens, if we consider the textbook definition of Autism Spectrum Disorders, since this requires the ability to master the underlying social context in the information presented just as a couple words-image matched through, usually ironic and sarcastic, rhetorical figures based on pop culture. Although communicating through memes offers a few advantages that directly compensate for the difficulty autistic people face while entering social situations, such as: ● Regulate using echolalia in stressful and anxious situations, such as encountering people in public spaces, hidden in the repetition of a sound considered more socially acceptable, such as the meme’s catchphrase. ● Transmission of disambiguous information: Memes, being a word-image pair, provide access to a concise and simplified non-verbal communication system that implies a broader meaning that cannot be misunderstood by those who know the sharing context. It provides a more accessible and comfortable way to express a concept than the risky natural communication that can cause misunderstandings. ● Sense of social belonging: the nature of a meme is that its information shared widely within online communities. This creates a sense of belonging to the social group of people who participate in certain platforms and applications. When a child enunciates a catchphrase, he assumes that his audience knows the meme from which it is taken and therefore understands what image it should be associated with, even though it is not shown (and vice versa). Receiving a response from the rest of the group constitutes an implicit expression of consent and confirmation of belonging to the same social group (those who know the meme), establishing mutual understanding and a friendly connection with others. ● Expression of emotions: memes are concentrated and concise formulas for the exposition of much broader, complex, and layered concepts, which, typically, autistic people find difficult to identify and express. This extreme simplification in a word-image pair allows children to identify their moods, more easily represent their emotional experiences, and communicate concepts that would be too complex for them to explain through traditional verbal language. In the same way, these children usually communicate with each other using gestures referencing the images or videos presented in popular memes, expecting the group to catch the related tagline to understand what they’re trying to express. The usage of memes was so common during the laboratory that therapists suggested creating a list of “forbidden words”, updated at the beginning of every encounter, containing all the words so overpronounced to be considered distracting from the children themselves. That ended up being a collection of meme catchphrases the participant admitted using so frequently to be an impairment to maintain a correct level of participation during the activities. Updating the list at the beginning of every session prompted the children to be more self-conscious about their habits and what they found distracting; it also encouraged them to improve their vocabulary and communication skills to express themselves without using those memes. On the other hand, introducing this activity before starting with the program for the day helped them settle into the laboratory, slightly extending the familiarization process begun in the welcome phase. Taking advantage of echolalia, as the children's relief associated with the repetition of words and sounds that are reassuring to them, is comforting for them and makes them aware they are entering a safe space, where they will receive help to improve their skills in a way that understands the peculiarity of their minds and free of any prejudice. According to this observation, in future applications, Pepper should be able to understand the meaning behind gestures, especially basic ones, such as hand raising, to catch non-verbal inputs, and when the children are referencing a meme and how to implement those into the dialog, to fully understand what is being communicated by the children and increase the perception of trust, credibility, and belonging to the same social group, helping the children to see Pepper as their peer and effectively use it in the role of mediator. To implement this kind of information, it can be useful to involve a group of teenagers and pre-teens, or a content creator who specializes in making content for this age group, in the process of making the robot persona and creating the dialogues. Another way to do this can be by leveraging machine learning strategies already planned to improve the quality of conversations, allowing the robot to learn directly from the children participating in the project, who demonstrated to be interested in helping with improving the robot and explaining their slang, recording the implicit meaning of a pun or a gesture for future reference and usage during the interactions. The use of machine learning also opens up the opportunity to dip into the websites most frequently used by this age group, such as social networks and video game forums. This solution can be helpful to keep Pepper’s vocabulary updated but is certainly more challenging due to the amount of data collected by this platform and the difficulty in designing a strategy to make the robot understand the subtext of the meme and to keep up with the evolution of the trends, even considering the possibility of relying on online databases that are updated frequently and that aim precisely to explain the meaning of this type of content, such as knowyourmeme.com. Finally, it is important to consider that the robot will interact with children, augmenting the risk of mistakenly implementing inappropriate content into the robot, considering that the majority of the information stored online is not child friendly.

The Power of Memes: The Pepper Robot as a Communicative Aid for Autistic Children - Memes

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Linda Pigureddu, University of Turin, Italy, 332079@edu.unito.it; (2) Cristina Gena, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Turin, Italy, cristina.gena@unito.it. Table of Links Introduction The Project Memes Conclusion and References THE PROJECT The laboratory Pepper was placed, in the role of mediator and dialogue partner, within the therapeutic laboratory[2] to promote autonomy and functional acquisition in autistic children with low support needs (level 1 support according to DSM-5 [1]). During the laboratory, conducted between the end of February 2021 and the beginning of June 2021, the exchanges, and interactions between autistic children in rehabilitation settings were explored, supported by the robot Pepper aiming to create an environment that would stimulate the development of social and communication skills, as well as strengthen the acquisition of strategies and autonomies related to daily activities, such as snack preparation [14]–[17]. Four autistic children with low support needs (level 1 support), aged 11 to 14 years, participated in the lab. During the lab sessions, the children had the opportunity to interact both directly with the robot and to participate in group activities, guided and coordinated by Pepper itself and the specialized operators, including educators, speech therapists, and psychologists [14]–[17]. The workshop sessions (16 in total), which were held weekly with a duration of two hours each, were recorded via a fixed camera, in addition to Pepper's 2D cameras (forehead camera and tablet camera), to allow post-hoc analysis to be conducted. During the meetings, two trainee students filled out evaluation forms provided by the psychotherapists, noting the progress of the sessions in a diary. These notes were later reworked to make reports, shared within the working group, reflecting the children's evolving behavior during their interactions with the robot [14]–[17]. To ensure the children's privacy, the "PepperForAutism" application was implemented in the robot during data collection, which consists of three main modules (Android app, web platform and backend) integrated into Jumple SRL's Pyramid platform. This system enabled the Pepper robot to uniquely identify the child with whom it was interacting, allowing data to be collected anonymously through association with a random ID known only to authorized individuals [14]–[17]. 1.1. The lab's sessions in details The sessions, lasting about two hours, were conducted by one or two specialized operators (educators, speech therapists, psychologists, etc.) assisted by two or three trainees. These were held in a room furnished with table and chairs and equipped with the tools necessary to carry out the activities, inside an apartment located in the center of Turin, made available by the Paideia Foundation also equipped with a bathroom, living room and kitchen. During the sessions, each child was given the opportunity to interact directly with Pepper and perform the activities planned for the group through the directions provided by the robot, with the help of the specialized operators and in a real context setting to leverage the benefit of a real-world evaluation [23]. Each session was phased and was conducted according to the following structure: 1. Welcome: children were made to sit in the apartment and welcomed by the therapists and the robot who, at the beginning of each session, provided directions on how to prepare to participate in the workshop. 2. First social time: dialogue session with the robot on a pre-established topic of interest (e.g., music, video games, etc.). The conversation is designed to be initialized by both the children and the robot. In the first case, "Getting Acquainted", the children would stand in front of the robot and, after waiting for it to catch their presence, proceed to ask a question of any sort. In the second case, identified as "Making Friends," Pepper would call the children one at a time to suggest a topic of conversation to each, according to a script updated weekly, in the expectation of engaging the other participants in a group conversation. 3. Development of practical skills (snack preparation and/or homework execution): Pepper played the role of activity coordinator, offering snack preparation instructions and explanatory videos displayed on the built-in tablet, in to guide the children in performing the task, with the therapists ready to intervene if needed. Starting from the 11th meeting, this phase was enriched by the inclusion of the activity of doing school homework. The children, who had been previously warned about the need to come equipped with their own school supplies, were asked to consult their journal to select a subject whose homework they wished to complete with the assistance of Pepper, who, after identifying a range of topics, proceeded by providing information on what materials were necessary or optional to proceed effectively with the task they chose. Again, the use of explanatory videos was provided. 4. Second social moment: post snack (or post homework) dialogue. The conversation is guided in the mode ("Moment of Knowledge" or "Making Friends") not explored in the First Social Moment. 5. Final Feedback: Before ending the session with greetings, Pepper asks the children to give their opinions about the meeting. In this phase, children were asked to stand in front of the robot and state their mood, choosing from the illustrated faces on the integrated tablet suitable for representing sadness, neutrality, and happiness. Because the workshop took place during a period characterized by social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, children were required to wear a clear visor as an alternative to the surgical mask so that Pepper could take a picture, which was later used by the trainees to assess the consistency of the emotion indicated by the child with his or her facial expressions and the mood inferred by the robot [16]. 1.2. Welcome At the beginning of each meeting, Pepper welcomed the children and provided them with instructions for getting ready for and participating in the lab. These instructions included descriptive phrases and directives similar to those found in social stories, with the purpose of guiding and supporting the children during the activities. This phase is the one that produced the most noticeably positive results. Although Pepper offered to repeat the welcome directions each time, the children demonstrated that they remembered from one encounter to the next the rules of the lab and were able to correctly follow the instructions to take off their shoes and coats and to sanitize their hands before entering the lab, while still benefiting from the psychologist's help when necessary [17]. Starting therapeutic sessions in this way is both functional for the organizational and managerial purposes of the lab itself, and in line with the natural inclination of autistic minds to seek order and behavioral patterns that facilitate schematization of routines, predictability of events, and, in general, repetition [1]. This choice offers participants a sensitive approach toward the peculiarities of their minds, allowing them to feel immediately at ease, making it easier to introduce the activities planned for the day, and encourages children to be genuine and spontaneous, immediately comforting them by implicitly declaring that they are entering a safe environment, designed specifically to support and stimulate their minds, with no prejudice about their frailties. 1.3. Practical skills training At this stage, the robot is assigned to coordinate the activity of snack preparation, offering snacks with recipes that were from time to time more and more complex, listing ingredients, encouraging children to get organized, providing guidance on the procedures both verbally and using pictures, animations and demonstration videos played on the built-in tablet, and giving children the opportunity to review the steps if necessary. During this activity, provision was made for Pepper to enter Waiting Mode, both to allow the children time to carry out the assignments and the opportunity for the group to spontaneously chat during the meal. On most occasions, the children took advantage of this time to share their suggestion for questions to ask Pepper during the conversational moments, and about activities and topics they would like to cover and proposal to improve the robot’s dialogue structure to make it more friendly and pleasant to talk with. This was also because the time spent with Pepper was perceived as valuable, and the children were inclined to focus on it even when they were not communicating with it directly since they felt empowered with the responsibility and opportunity to contribute to the improvement of the robot. The snack time produced good results and, in addition to being evidently stimulating for the young participants, was also one of their favorite moments; in fact, in most of the encounters they asked to start the lab session with this activity. The children showed appreciation for Pepper's help and, from the very beginning, good levels of autonomy, although the excitement associated with this time often affected the ability to maintain high concentration levels, as indicated by the scores given by the operatives [17]. Beginning in the eleventh meeting, the school homework activity was introduced, in which Pepper offered the children directions on what tools would be needed and tricks for doing the task they chose, always accompanying the verbal instructions with multimedia elements played on the integrated tablet when needed [17]. Regarding this phase, there was not sufficient data collected to assess its effectiveness, but it is still possible to consider the direct feedback from the children, who repeatedly and openly stated that they did not want to «waste» their time in the lab with ordinary activities, suggesting alternative skill-building activities (e.g., chemistry or robotics experiments), while only on one occasion one child did say that he appreciated the time devoted to doing homework, as it allowed him to associate the lab with the environment more familiar to him, of school. 1.4. Conversations During the dialogue moments, the children were directly asked whether they wanted to "get acquainted" or "make friends" with the robot. In the former, they were given the opportunity to ask questions of their interest directly to Pepper, while in the latter, it was Pepper who asked them questions about their interests so as to encourage a collective conversation on the topic. Unfortunately, both modes did not produce satisfactory results, as they were too far removed from the human conversational style [20], consisting of simple repartee, without the possibility of in depth or direct conversation development with the robot, due to the lack of an open conversational system that would allow the robot to use a communicative style more similar to natural language [17]. Giving children the opportunity to ask questions to the robot at a time when it lacked the ability to draw on ontologies to respond but had a dialogue system based on the manual and weekly update of its script, has produced various difficulties during the conversational moments. apart from not taking into account the difficulty of autistic people in initializing conversations [21], has produced several situations of misunderstanding, in which the robot, for technical difficulties (e.g. background noise, speech defects, etc.) or the absence of the input provided by the child within its script, it found itself unable to provide a coherent and satisfactory response [17]. After few interactions, the children began to ask themselves about Pepper with derisive attitude, deliberately asking nonsensical questions attempting to get funny answers or to evaluate how far they could go before sending cause a malfunction. An example of mocking interaction that has produced a lot of hilarity and has been revived during several meetings is related to the understanding by the children that pronounce at the beginning of the question the keywords «have you ever been in...» allowed access to the standard answer: «no, but I would like to visit the whole world», even though the question was not completed with a real location, prompting participants to ask if Pepper had ever visited the Moon, heaven or the land of the stupidity. As per the goal of stimulating the social interaction between the participants, the technical difficulties that emerged during this phase encouraged the children's curiosity about the robot, encouraging collective discussion about how Pepper works and brainstorming suggestions for improvements to make it a more enjoyable conversation partner. On the other hand, the analysis of these phases, despite not having produced satisfactory therapeutic results, is extremely interesting to conduct an evaluation of interactions aimed at improving the dialogue system, pointing out that, even before technical problems, communication with the robot is deficient because it is not fluent in the slang used by children, compromising its position as a mediator because it is unable to act as an interpreter between children and specialized adults working in the laboratory. [2] Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the bioethical committee of the University of Turin, with approval number: 0664572.

The Power of Memes: The Pepper Robot as a Communicative Aid for Autistic Children - The Project

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Linda Pigureddu, University of Turin, Italy, 332079@edu.unito.it; (2) Cristina Gena, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Turin, Italy, cristina.gena@unito.it. Table of Links Introduction The Project Memes Conclusion and References This article describes the preliminary qualitative results of a therapeutic laboratory involving the Pepper robot, as a facilitator, to promote autonomy and functional acquisition in autistic children with low support needs (level 1 support). The lab, designed and led by a multidisciplinary team, involved 4 children, aged 11 to 13 years, and was organized in weekly meetings for the duration of four months. The following is the result of an in-depth qualitative evaluation of the interactions that took place between the children and the Pepper robot, with the aim of analyzing their effectiveness for the purpose of promoting the development of social and communication skills in the participants. The observations and analyses conducted during the interactions provided valuable insights into the dialogue and communication style employed and paved the way for possible strategies to make the robot more empathetic and engaging for autistic children. Keywords: autism, robotics, field studies INTRODUCTION Autism Spectrum Disorders take their name from the conception of the autistic condition as a heterogeneous spectrum, which can manifest in countless different ways. In the most recent edition of the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013 [1]), autism spectrum disorder is categorized as a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves features that impact the individual's social and communication skills. Although diagnostic manuals have moved beyond the former pathologizing view of autism, accepting that it is only a feature of mental functioning and not a mental illness[2], they recognize different levels of support for it (where level 1 is the lowest level of support, and level 3 is the highest level of support needed) that reflect the individual's autonomy in society and any co-occurrences with physical, psychiatric, and psychological impairments [3]. Recent studies on robot-assisted therapies for autism has produced very satisfactory results on the side of implementing social behaviors, spontaneous initialization of dialogue and management of stereotypies, often superior than traditional therapies [4]–[10]. This therapeutic success is credited to the special affinity that autistic children develop with the robotic partner, as it fulfills the needs for repetitiveness, stability and control of the environment typical in autistic minds, allowing the child to feel more comfortable in the laboratory setting and thus be more participatory during therapeutic activities [4]–[10]. Finally, it is underlined that for the children participating in the kind of projects it is clear that the robots cannot feel prejudiced toward them and are, as a result, more reassuring partners to them, which they can feel free to express themselves with without being limited by the unselfconscious dynamics of masking[1] [13]. This makes their use in the role of mediator within therapeutic settings particularly useful, as it encourages the dynamics of pairing allowing children to project their positive feelings toward the automaton upon the adults in charge associated with the robot, promoting social initiative and the success of plans aimed at the development of communication skills [14]. This paper describes preliminary qualitative results from a therapeutic laboratory focused on the use of the robot Pepper to promote autonomy and functional acquisition in autistic children with low support needs (level 1 support). The analysis presented focuses primarily on the interactions and dialogues that occurred between the children and the robot, providing an in-depth view of the communicative dynamics within the laboratory setting. In addition, information is provided on the empirical results that emerged during the workshop phases, based on a qualitative analysis of the audiovisual material produced during the workshop. It is important to note that all workshop meetings were recorded, and evaluations were made based on these recordings. [1] Often also referred to as "camouflaging," in reference to ASD it is the ability of the autistic person to compensate for the deficits by hiding or limiting stereotypies (repetitive movements), internalizing discomforts related to sensory overloads, withholding meltdowns, i.e., explosive reactions and energetic manifestations resulting from uncomfortable situations that have become unbearable ([11]) and emulating neurotypical behaviors[12].

The Power of Memes: The Pepper Robot as a Communicative Aid for Autistic Children - Introduction

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Pig and Pepper here CHAPTER VI. Pig and Pepper For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, “From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.” Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky. Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked. “There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.” And certainly there a most extraordinary noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces. was “Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?” “There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on without attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were , you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.” He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,” she said to herself; “his eyes are so nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?” she repeated, aloud. inside very “I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “till tomorrow—” At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him. “—or next day, maybe,” the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened. “How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone. “ you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first question, you know.” Are It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. “It’s really dreadful,” she muttered to herself, “the way all the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!” The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on and off, for days and days.” “But what am to do?” said Alice. I “Anything you like,” said the Footman, and began whistling. “Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idiotic!” And she opened the door and went in. The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. “There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!” Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing. There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. “Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, “why your cat grins like that?” “It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why. Pig!” She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:— “I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats grin.” could “They all can,” said the Duchess; “and most of ’em do.” “I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation. “You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact.” Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. “Oh, mind what you’re doing!” cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. “Oh, there goes his nose!” as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off. please precious “If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” “Which would be an advantage,” said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. “Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” not “Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!” Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on again: “Twenty-four hours, I ; or is it twelve? I—” think “Oh, don’t bother ,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide figures!” And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line: me “Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases.” CHORUS. (In which the cook and the baby joined): “Wow! wow! wow!” While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:— “I speak severely to my boy, I beat him when he sneezes; For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases!” CHORUS. “Wow! wow! wow!” “Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her. Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, “just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). “Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.” The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears. very No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence. Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further. no So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect. very “Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get ,” Alice added as an explanation. somewhere “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.” Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here?” “In direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” that that “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how do you know that you’re mad?” “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” “I suppose so,” said Alice. “Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” I “ call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. I “Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?” “I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited yet.” “You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished. Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again. “By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.” “It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way. “I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again. Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree. “Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat. “I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” “All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. “Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Lewis Carroll (2008). Alice in Wonderland. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11/pg11-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

Pig and Pepper

We already understand the importance of encrypting passwords before saving them in the database. It is the standard practice, and not doing so means putting the user's data at significant risk. Let's take America as an example, where 67% of internet users use the same password for all their online accounts. So if a hacker breaks into your system and gets access to the database, where the passwords are in plain text, they will have a 67% chance of using that password to log in to other popular online platforms. That's why it is necessary to hash the passwords before saving, so no one, including the people inside the organization, can view the passwords in plain text. We usually encrypt passwords using hashing algorithms; MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-2 are some of the commonly used algorithms. Hashing a password makes it unrecognizable to the viewer, but does it guarantees the hashed password from being cracked? Let's understand how hashed passwords are still not 100% secure. Recovering plain text from hashed text is impossible without infinite computational power. However, we can still reverse-engineer the process. There is something called , a pre-computed table of commonly used passwords saved in a pair of plain text and hash. Let's look at an instance where you are the user on a system that just got hacked. The password you used on the system was a very commonly used password, " The system hashed the passwords with MD5 before saving them in the database, so the password got saved as . Rainbow tables p@ssw0rD". "54fd6fc0cfbb34bd6e5a6742d965b658" After getting access to the hashed password, the hacker has no idea what it is in plain text, and here is where the rainbow table comes into use. Since you used a common password, there is a high chance it is already available in one of the many available rainbow tables. The hacker only needs to search for the hash ( ) in the rainbow tables. Matching the password hash in the table means getting the plain text. In simple words, your password got compromised. Now like 67% of American internet users, if you use the same password on other online accounts, you will be in deep trouble. We don't want this to happen to our users, so let's understand how to counter this problem. 54fd6fc0cfbb34bd6e5a6742d965b658 We have two answers to the problem; Salt and Pepper. Maybe you are already aware of Salt or have no clue. Either way, let's focus on Pepper. I believe it is easier to understand a concept with a little snippet of code; the following is a bit of Javascript, it is super simple, and if you are familiar with basic programming, I am sure you will understand the concept. We will be creating two functions, *,* and *.* createHash verifyPassword Let's start with This function will convert the plain text to hashed text with a twist. createHash. function createHash (plainText) {
  const character = selectRandomCharacter();
  const newPlainText = plainText+character;
  const hash = encrypt(newPlainText);
  return hash;
} Assume that the and functions already exist. The function returns a character randomly selected between the range of a and z, and the function hashes the plain text using any algorithm. selectRandomCharacter encrypt selectRandomCharacter encrypt As you can see, we get a randomly selected character, append it to the end of the plain text, and then hash the plain text. The extra character that we append is called the . It doesn't need to go at the end, it can also be prepended, or placed in between. It's your choice. Pepper Let's look at the other function, the . It will check if the provided password in plain text matches the hashed password saved in the database. It's usually used during the login process. verifyPassword function verifyPassword(plainText, savedHash) {
  const characterArray = getArrayOfCharacters(); // returns an array of characters between a and z
  for (let char in characterArray){
    const newPlainText = plainText+char;
    const hash = encrypt(newPlainText);
    if (hash == savedHash) return true;
  }  
  return false;
} All we know is that a character, from between a to z, was appended, but we don't know which, so what the function does is that it loops over the range (a-z), append the character on each loop, and verifies if the hash of that new plain text matches the saved hash. When it finds a match, it will mean that the provided password in plain text is valid and returns . If the loop ends without matching, it returns . true false I hope you got a clear idea of the concept. The good thing about Pepper is that no one, including the developers, knows which character got appended to the plain text before it was hashed and saved. This small change makes a massive difference as the hashed passwords become many times more secure. The previously used common password "p@ssw0rD" may be hashed as "p@ssw0rD ", and instead of the hash being "54fd6fc0cfbb34bd6e5a6742d965b658", it will become "a3bf00d81e6c45200abee0f0738ff4e7". With Pepper, the hash of passwords will no longer be saved in their original form, so it is hard to imagine them being in the rainbow table. w With Pepper in place, you can rest easy because the passwords saved on your application have become multiple times difficult to compromise. Do understand that this is not a means to secure the system. Instead, it is a measure in case the system is hacked or compromised. Until next time :) Also Published Here

How You Can Use Pepper to Further Secure Encrypted Passwords

Big data analysis generally involves piping large data sets into processing systems such as Apache Spark and Hadoop, walking away for a very long coffee, and returning later to a hopefully successful result. The DevOps and continuous build ecosystem have long employed linters, code analyzers, and application profilers to discern potential trouble and optimization points in code, and Pepperdata wants to bring that practice to the big data world. I spoke with CEO , formerly CTO of Yahoo! and consultant to other data heavy tech companies, about what the company offers and how their customers save hours from running inefficient processing jobs. Ash Munshi Originally published at dzone.com . Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own. Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Pepperdata: Bringing DevOps Practices to the Big Data World

Announcing Pepo 2.0 & our intent for a Q4 2017 Pepo Coin token offering [ICO] In this post I provide an update on the development of and our plans for the future. Pepo We began working on Pepo in February 2016 with a big idea to . We imagined an efficient and seamless way for anyone anywhere to connect instantly with the most relevant expertise and experts on any topic. democratize the market for everyday expertise Our original Pepo thesis was formed through a series of observations: When you want to get in touch with a business professional, you know where to go: . But where do you go when you want to get in touch with an “everyday expert” on all of the other things in your life? Travel, local tips, parenting, fitness, nutrition, fashion, entertainment, etc. — important everyday life topics. These topics tend to be very personal and very specific to one’s particular life situation, e.g. solo female travel in Columbia, caring for a home garden in Pune, India, where to find a safe gay dance party in Dubai (yes, they do exist), or planning for budget backpacking in Japan. These are topics where reputation is earned through first-hand experience, and topics that lend themselves to long and arduous research and reading first before asking questions or finding someone to get in touch with. Sure, you can find content on such topics by searching the web, but how do you get the most relevant, current, and even real-time information? Who can you trust? And, when you need more information or want to ask follow-up questions, how can you appropriately contact the everyday experts? First, we observed a market gap for connecting with everyday experts. LinkedIn Large social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are reinforcing the notion that everyone is a content creator, constantly sharing the minute moments of our lives. However, none of those platforms lend themselves well to genuinely connecting with everyday experts: identifying their first-hand expertise, establishing their reputation, learning from their experiences, asking them questions, messaging with them, and getting their first-hand insider tips personally tailored to you. For example, how many Instagrammers look forward to strangers direct messaging them to ask follow-up questions about their latest beach pic? How many Snapchatters are available for live Q&A to discuss further insights on their experiences? Facebook is mostly about the people you already know. Same with WhatsApp & Messenger. But, how do you connect with trusted strangers, and go beyond digesting their content and communicate directly with the experts? As my mother put it: Second, we observed that existing social networks are ill-suited to fill that gap. “I don’t want to just read about or watch a video about planning my trip to Iceland, I want to also easily figure out who I can trust on specific details related to our situation (e.g. we are seniors, we only eat fish and no meat, and we want to make sure we can plan some nice long nature walks each day), and I want a comfortable and convenient way to contact them. I cannot do that with [existing] social media.” Most of the existing user generated content platforms are based on audience attention models, meaning they rely on user generated content contributed for free, monetized by closed platforms via advertising (take for example in the travel and local tips categories: TripAdvisor, Yelp, or Zomato). The owning entities of social networks and such consumer audience businesses are motivated by creating as many ad impressions as possible within their networks and then attracting and enticing and retaining as many consumers as possible to click on those advertisements. Consumers contribute their content for free to those networks, while advertisers pay the owners for producing views, clicks, actions, and app installs. We believe that’s somewhat backwards. We want to democratize and decentralize everyday expertise. Everyone is an expert at somethings and they should be fairly rewarded for their relevant content contributions, and for their roles as influencers. In a world where more and more power is increasingly shifting to consumers as influencers, the consumers — as community stakeholders — should be empowered to realize the value of their contributions. Third, we observed structural problems with prevailing business models. From these observations we formed our ideas for a new online marketplace that would democratize everyday expertise. When thinking through how to construct this new marketplace, we landed on 5 big components, we internally call MDRCE: Nearly 3 billion people carry smartphones — super computers — in their pockets. People send more than 100 billion messages each day using those devices. We theorized that democratizing everyday expertise would start with messaging because it’s a familiar format, that so many people are already using today. However, we would also need to rethink messaging as a platform for strangers to come together over shared passions. We would need to create a new type of messaging platform that connects strangers, has memory, fosters reputation, and that comfortably facilitates many-to-many, one-to-many, and one-to-one conversations. Messaging. As we foresaw millions — and hopefully someday billions — of messages being posted with experiences, insider tips, expertise, and answers to questions, we realized that we would have to invent new ways for people to find and digest all that content. Search would play a major role, as would some form of “expertise feed” that combined explicit and implicit user interest and machine learning to serve up a regular dose of personally relevant tips. We plotted out an “expertise graph” that intersected one’s social graph, interest graph, location graph, and conversation graph. Discovery. As opposed to LinkedIn, where for the most part everyone brings their reputation to the platform, we hypothesized that our new system would have to be self-reinforcing such that authority and reputation is established by participating in the community. You become the , for example, by providing the most valued Berlin food tips. The system would need to incentivize, identify, and reward topical relevance across the expertise graph. Reputation. #1 Berlin Foodie People should be able to earn money for their contributions! We envision a system wherein millions of everyday experts would be able to monetize their expertise, be rewarded for their influence, and sell their related digital and physical services. This would require a currency that people could earn and spend on the platform, tied to real-world value. Currency. Finally, in the face of massive and nearly monopolistic digital media incumbents, we posited that the only way we would be able to achieve our mission to democratize the market for everyday expertise would be to empower a community of Pepo members with a vested interest in the platform’s success. We shall provide transparency, fairness, and direct economic interest to all participants, enabling anyone with relevant expertise to monetize their knowledge and experiences. Empowerment. That’s a lot do. As we set out on this journey 17 months ago, we made the strategic decision to not try to build all of MDRCE at once, rather to get something small out in the marketplace early and then iterate like mad towards our big vision. We knew that users might not fully understand or value Pepo until all the features and marketplace dynamics were fleshed out, but we felt that outweighed the risk of building in a vacuum while the external market rapidly evolved. That led us to launch an early public beta version of Pepo in October 2016. Since then we’ve been digesting hundreds of thousands of early user data inputs and fine tuning the platform. We ship new app updates, optimizations, and enhancements weekly. inching us a bit closer to realizing our vision for democratizing everyday expertise. Today we are launching Pepo 2.0, . . . As featured on Product Hunt Download for iPhone Download for Android New in Pepo 2.0: Every Pepo member gets a personalized Pepo Insider Feed with relevant insider tips, Q&A, and experiences. As you use Pepo, the app learns what you like — and suggests what you might like — and your Pepo feed gets more and more personalized. The new My Activity section presents a feed of all the posts you have interacted with. Secret messages and channels are now split out into a separate inbox, and are not included in your feed. Streamlined navigation. We will continue to ship enhancements and updates weekly. Some of our immediate priorities are in the areas of further enhancements to Discovery and Reputation. Pepo Coin ICO As the next logical step towards our vision for democratizing everyday expertise, we are ready to reveal that we have been working towards a Q4 2017 Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for Pepo Coin, a token to be based on Ethereum. The purpose of the Pepo Coin ICO is to foster and empower a passionate community of member stakeholders. The ICO will go towards funding an endowment for the long term benefit of the community. We shall provide more details about the Pepo Coin ICO in the coming weeks. We are taking a long-term view on Pepo & Pepo Coin, so our focus is getting it right vs. moving overly fast. We are assembling a great team of advisors and industry experts to work with us leading up to and following the token issuance event. Unlike many other recent ICO companies, Pepo is a live product that anyone can use already today. Pepo Coin will be integrated into the Pepo platform following the ICO. One particular area where we think we can add unique value to the Blockchain community is to demystify Blockchain and make Ethereum approachable and useful for non technical consumers. Official communication about the Pepo Coin ICO will originate in the . Pepo Coin ICO channel on Pepo This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offeror solicitation to sell shares or securities in Pepo or any related or associated company. Any such offer or solicitation will be made only by means of a confidential offering memorandum and in accordance with the terms of allapplicable securities and other law.

Announcing Pepo 2.0 & our intent for a Q4 2017 Pepo Coin token offering [ICO]

Canon Beach, Oregon, U.S.A. PC: Jamison McAndie that has raised $2.3 million in seed financing from , , , , Oriente, founder Jason Goldberg (myself), Nishith Shah, and other investors. Today, on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in London, I announced Pepo Tencent Greycroft Vectr Correlation Pepo’s In the 20 minute interview I talk about startups, failure, socialmedian, Donald Trump, and diversity, and also about Pepo’s new financing. Pepo is a new messaging platform that connects you with people who share your passions. Pepo was founded in February 2016 and the Pepo app for iPhone and Android devices launched on 27 October, 2016. Pepo is founded by myself (Product Lead), Sunil Khedar (CTO) and the product development team that built , , and . Sunil and I have worked together since 2008. Pepo’s primary offices are in Berlin, Germany & Pune, India. Fab.com Hem.com Social Median We are grateful that such accomplished investors believe in our vision for Pepo. . I’m perhaps most thankful today that 7 of the 10 — ever board members from my previous company, Fab, are now involved with Pepo. Thank you for your renewed partnership and support. Your continued belief in our team is humbling. In previous posts I have written about the emotional and professional challenges involved with overcoming extreme failure in business Pepo connects you with people who share your passions A Gazillion Avocado Toasts. The idea for Pepo was inspired by my experience trying to pursue one of my unique passions: avocado toast. Last Christmas my husband Chris and I were walking around Sydney and we had a craving for avocado toast. We searched Google but we weren’t satisfied with the static results. We posted a question on Facebook but our post got lost in the stream and didn’t reach anyone who was in-the-know. It hit me that it should be possible to instantly connect with other avocado toast enthusiasts around the world, instantly, via a messaging platform that connects friends, friends of friends, nearby, people with unique passions and expertise, indexible, always searchable – and that avocado toast was just 1 of gazillions of use cases for such a service. people We’ve all been there before: Your friends email you asking for the same tips and recommendations over and over again. Maybe it’s for mom’s chicken soup recipe. Or, maybe it’s for that great sushi place in Tokyo. Or maybe it’s for an expert in email marketing. Enter Pepo. Democratizing Interests, Expertise, & Passions. We believe that there is an interesting untapped need and opportunity to connect people with shared interests, expertise, and passions. While other messaging platforms optimize on the people you already know, Pepo connects you with the people you want to know and the stories you want to be part of. We have a big long-term vision to democratize the market for shared passions— enabling people to instantly connect with experts and people in-the-know around the world. We are taking an Our entire focus right now is on Pepo member engagement — every week we ship new features designed to help Pepo’s members get more value from the platform. So far we are encouraged by the results as nearly 50% of Pepo’s members are using Pepo weekly, but we also know that it’s still early days, it’s a hyper competitive market, and that gaining traction and continuing engagement with consumer apps is always challenging. Put simply: We have an uphill road to climb and we have a lot of work to do! incremental approach to building towards that big vision. Today on Pepo you can create and join public, private, and secret live conversations on any topic. Add up to 6 “interest & expertise tags” to your profile and Pepo instantly connects you with people and conversations that match your passions. The rest is up to you. Pepo is a platform and you can take it any direction you’d like. While Pepo is only a couple of weeks old, already thousands of people turn to Pepo every day to share their stories and connect with experts and enthusiasts. Travelers. Foodies. Fans. Politicos. Designers. Dog Lovers. Airline Geeks. Blockchain enthusiasts. Gym Fits. LGBT’s. No matter your interests, Pepo connects you with the people and voices that matter most to you. Get Pepo. Follow Your Passions. . . Pepo for iPhone Pepo for Android A Final Word On Fundraising Raising money is not a victory unto itself, rather it’s an enabler. Raising money represents opportunity and responsibility. Thank you again to our investors for providing us with your resources and your confidence to pursue our big vision. We promise to respect your investment and to do our best to create value.

Pepo — the messaging platform that connects you with people who share your passions — Announces…

Jason is an entrepreneur. He founded Hem.com, Fab.com & socialmedian. He also had stints as the Jobster CEO and XING CPO. Now, Jason is building Pepo , a mobile app that aims to map the “conversation graph,” i.e. a discoverable intersection of the social graph, the interest graph, and location graph. The . What’s most exciting about your traction to date, and how has the early usage impacted your product roadmap? Pepo app went live on Oct 26 It has been a really fun and informative first month. Our overall approach has been to focus entirely on user engagement. One thing we observed with a lot of other apps is that there’s this tendency to launch big and then putter out. We wanted to take a different — and hopefully more long term sustainable — approach with Pepo. Rather than shooting for millions of users overnight, we are building incrementally as we observe and measure user behavior, with the entire focus being on engagement, engagement, engagement. At launch, we positioned Pepo as the app where people can connect around shared passions. Beyond that, we purposely left it open ended so that we can see where our early users take the platform and then build towards that. We purposely didn’t define any particular verticals or use cases, we just put it out there and let the users go for it. So far Pepo’s early users have done a lot in the foodie, travel, interior design, technology, politics, LGBT, and sports categories. Foodie and travel topics have really dominated thus far so right now we’re working on how to help our chat hosts get the most out of Pepo for those topics, while also encouraging other topics to blossom. It has also been super interesting to have real users pushing us in directions that we had not prioritized previously. For instance, one of the original assumptions with Pepo was that we should focus much less on one-to-one messaging or secret messaging because there are so many other apps that do that so well already (e.g. WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat). So, what do you think our early users are asking us most for? To be able direct message people they meet on Pepo from within Pepo. Doh! 2. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I admire the transparency and forward looking approach you write with (examples: & ). But just because we write about it, it doesn’t mean we’ve made peace. Making peace is hard. The death of business can feel like the death of the person. When Fab-Hem ended, which stage of grief was the hardest to come to terms with? On the rebound from epic failure My Response to Bloomberg’s Article: “How Not to Strangle Your Unicorn — Jason Goldberg’s Fab.com was valued at $1 billion before it collapsed. What can today’s startups learn from his failure?” Not a day goes by where I don’t reflect on and consider the mistakes that I made in the past. It’s hard for me to pinpoint a “stage of grief” that has been hardest. It’s all hard. 3. I’m fascinated by the future of content discovery. From newspapers to search engines to social networks, it’s all about how to find that next ‘piece of content’ with the right mix and mash of reach, resonance and relevance. Could you share a glimpse of how you see the “conversation graph” shaping content discovery? There’s a “yes, but, so” behind that I’m fascinated with. Pepo YES, the internet has made us more connected than ever and made it easier to connect with information and people. BUT, it’s still rather difficult to connect with the right people who share your passions and who have the expertise you need. SO, we’re working on democratizing the market for shared interest and for obtaining access to expertise. We think that’s a worthy problem to work on and one that could be a very interesting market opportunity. Pepo connects you with people who share your passions. Download Pepo. On 6 December Pepo announced that it had raised $2M in seed financing from Tencent, Greycroft, Vectr, Correlation, Oriente, Jason Goldberg, Nishith Shah, and other investors. 3QuestionsWith.Us is an original series by AMI Publications , profiling those who push commerce, technology, and art forward.

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