Astellas’ partnership with Chicago-based nonprofit Aspiritech seamlessly merges proficiency, creativity and corporate social responsibility.

By harnessing the strengths of adults with high functioning autism – attention to detail, precision, an affinity for repetitive tasks and outstanding technology skills – Aspiritech is providing high quality domestic software testing and other quality assurance services to Astellas in a wide range of tech capacities.

The collaboration began in the spring of 2015, when the Astellas People Living with Disabilities employee resource group hosted the organization at the company’s Americas headquarters for a capabilities presentation. Since then, working directly with Astellas’ IT department, Aspiritech’s test engineers, who operate offsite at the organization’s headquarters in Highland Park, Illinois, have played an integral role in advancing several key IT projects focused on database cleanup and validation, as well as log file analysis.

“The accuracy and speed that the test engineers at Aspiritech have displayed has been remarkable,” said James Anderson, director, Commercial Technology at Astellas. “This group of individuals has an undeniable set of skills that makes them uniquely suited to perform software testing and QA work at a very prolific rate.”

The partnership also provides Astellas with an opportunity to highlight people with high-functioning autism as competent and adept workers, who use their distinctive skillset to accomplish complex and difficult tasks, and demonstrate the value they bring to the organization.

“Working with Aspiritech has been a hugely rewarding experience for Astellas and its employees,” said Stacy Stone, associate director, Commercial Technology at Astellas. “We certainly hope this paves the way for future partnerships with organizations like Aspiritech.”

To learn more about Aspiritech, visit their website here.