Access For All

G3ict and E.J. Krause & Associates (EJK) announced a cooperation agreement to convene the first mobile industry event exclusively dedicated to accessibility and assistive applications and services for seniors and persons with disabilities. “M-Enabling 2011 – The Global Forum on Mobile Applications and Services for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities” will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., December 5 and 6, 2011.

Designed to attract a global audience of mobile service providers, telecom regulators, disabled persons organizations, applications developers and accessibility experts, M-Enabling 2011 will also provide governments, community services, health and private sector information and communications professionals with innovative solutions to leverage mobile platforms to better serve seniors and persons with disabilities.

“Mobile devices processing power and networks bandwidth support many innovative solutions for greater accessibility and assistive applications and services for seniors and persons with disabilities. The versatility of handsets and operating systems, cloud-based applications and global economies of scale of the mobile industry all point towards a growing opportunity for developers to bring innovative life-enhancing solutions for hundreds of millions of seniors and persons with disabilities around the world,” said Axel Leblois, Executive Director of G3ict.

While handset manufacturers and third party applications developers are already offering leading edge accessible and assistive applications and services, mobile service providers and their distributors are becoming new and vital participants in promoting and making those applications and services available to seniors and persons with disabilities around the world.

“Bringing the core mobile industry eco-system to adopt and promote accessible and assistive solutions and services for seniors and persons with disabilities is essential to their success,” said Ned Krause, CEO of E.J. Krause & Associates. “We will contribute our many years of experience in the mobile industry to ensure that developers, service providers, handset manufacturers, assistive and accessible technology experts from all horizons can further expand their opportunities by interacting with a global audience of motivated decision makers. We are very pleased that G3ict decided to partner with our firm for this very significant opportunity to promote mobile solutions for seniors and persons with disabilities.”

The first edition of M-Enabling will be organized in cooperation with international organizations of telecom regulators, mobile service providers and organizations of persons with disabilities. It is expected that the first event will attract decision makers participating in the mobile industry from around the world, as well as leading organizations promoting mobile applications and services for seniors and persons with disabilities.

More information.

Vodafone Foundation, AGE Platform Europe (AGE) and the European Disability Forum (EDF) will launch the joint initiative “Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards” on Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 10:00 – 12:00.
They will be asking researchers and developers to create mobile applications to improve the lives of older users and users with disabilities: we want the smartphone revolution to benefit everybody.
During the launch event they will debate how the smartphone platforms can enable low cost and rapid innovation and ensure the widespread distribution of new functionality to users who may otherwise be excluded from the benefice of today’s digital society.

Agenda
Panel 1
Andrew Dunnet, Foundation Director, Vodafone Group
Anne-Sophie Parent, Secretary General, AGE
Javier Güemes, Acting Director, EDF

Presentation of the contest
Sanjeet Matharu, Principal Developer Marketing Manager, Vodafone Group
Nena Georgantzi, Research Project Coordinator, AGE
Nadège Riche, Policy Officer, EDF

Q &A

Panel 2
Paul Timmers, ICT addressing Societal Challenges, DG INFSO confirmed
Adam Kosa, MEP, Member of Social and Employment Committee confirmed
Richard Howitt, Member of Social Affairs Committee TBC

Chaired by Eirini Zafeiratou, Head EU Affairs, Vodafone Group

If you would like to join the launch please send a mail to Cindy De Koninck.

AAL Open Association – AALOA organises a workshop together with the eInclusion unit (European Commission) and AAL JP support with the topic “Support for companies developing Ambient Assisted Living solutions to achieve the market breakthrough”. The workshop will take place at the 7th of June in Brussels and will discuss different issues for an AAL market break through. Also possible new funding schemes to support the porting of existing vertical AAL hardware and software solutions towards one horizontal platform will be discussed.

To register, click here.

Following presentation “Accessibility, an ongoing struggle in every domain of daily life” was given at the ATTRACT workshop in Madrid, Spain on 10 May 2011.