The Australian government’s Department for Human Services is to fund a project in which people on the autistic spectrum will be employed as software testers at IT giant Hewlett-Packard in the country’s capital Canberra.

The Canberra Times reports the project will be launched in October.

The project forms part of a collaboration known as the Dandelion Project, which launched in January, and sees the Danish Specialist People Foundation (SPF) select and assess autistic Australians who are then hired by Hewlett-Packard to work as software testers.

Canberra Times adds that the trial programme is under way in Adelaide and more than 10 people have been employed since January.

SPF is an organisation that provides staff, most of whom have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, to work as consultants in sectors with technically orientated tasks and jobs, such as data management, software testing and quality control. 

In April, it announced a similar pilot project with Microsoft, working with the software giant under its Specialisterne concept.

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