Access For All

Vodafone has announced the winners of the inaugural Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards at a ceremony attended by the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and Vodafone Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao.
The mobile internet is central to the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world as an increasing number of consumers turn to smartphones for messaging, social networking, access to information and entertainment and many other services.
Smartphones offer significant benefits for the more than 1 billion people who live with some form of disability. Applications targeting the specific challenges faced by disabled and older people – for example, text-to-speech services for the visually impaired – can directly enhance quality of life. However, relatively few mobile application developers focus on the potential that smartphone apps have to help people with disabilities play a more active and independent role in society.
The Vodafone Foundation partnered with AGE Platform Europe and the European Disability Forum (EDF) to devise and deliver the Smart Accessibility Awards: an international competition which rewards developers who have the creativity, vision and social commitment to harness the power of smartphones and the mobile internet in support of disabled and older people’s needs.
The winning smartphone apps whose developers will share the €200,000 prize fund are:

• Help Talk (Wellbeing category): Help Talk is designed for people who are unable to communicate by speech, whether permanently or temporarily, such as those recovering from strokes. The application presents a set of commands represented by icons which when tapped ‘speak’ the basic need or desire – such as ‘I’m thirsty’ or ‘I feel pain’ – and goes on to allow the user to provide further detail in the same way.
• Wheelmap (Mobility category): Wheelmap helps people with impaired mobility who may literally face obstacles as they go about their everyday life. Crowdsourcing lets users of the application rate and review the accessibility for wheelchair users of public places including cafes, museums, hotels and shops. In one month 1200 users registered for the app, and 180,000 places were reviewed.
• Zoom Plus Magnifier (Independent living category): Zoom Plus Magnifier app allows people with visual disabilities including colour blindness and long or short-sightedness, as well as some forms of dyslexia, to easily read text by applying a magnifier, sharpening the focus, or adjusting font and background colours.
• BIG Launcher (Social participation category): BIG Launcher is an alternative customisable Android homescreen, for elderly or visually impaired users who often struggle to use the small keyboards on most devices. It uses big buttons and large fonts to represent all the basic functions of the phone – telephone, SMS messages, camera, gallery, SOS button and installed apps.

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group CEO said, “Vodafone is committed to doing all we can to empower consumers of all ages and abilities: we want to extend the smartphone revolution to as many communities as possible.”
Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda said, “We need relevant smartphone apps for all our communities. I congratulate the winners of the Smart Accessibility Awards and the Vodafone Foundation for helping bring the benefits of smartphones to all Europeans. Everyone can gain from the digital revolution. ”
Rodolfo Cattani, EDF Executive Secretary said, “Accessibility and interoperability of communications devices are vital to making possible the professional and cultural inclusion of people with disabilities. At the same time, when not accessible, the technology can create new obstacles and can lead to new forms of discrimination.”
“Mobile technology has an important role to play in the context of the European Year 2012 for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations which aims at supporting older people to be active in all areas of their lives and live independently for longer”, observed Anne-Sophie Parent, AGE Secretary-General. “In a society driven by new technologies, it is essential to make sure new applications are accessible to all, in order to avoid increasing the digital divide and the social exclusion of the most vulnerable groups of the population.”
Winning applications will be available to Vodafone customers using Android smartphones.
For more information about the awards or mobile accessibility, visit http://developer.vodafone.com/smartaccess2011 or http://www.guardian.co.uk/smart-accessibility.

The Center on Disabilities at California State University, Northridge announced that the Call for Papers for the 27th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference will open on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 and will close on Friday, September 30, 2011. Please Note:
The Call for Papers will be open for 4 weeks only this year.
Visit http://cfp.csuncod.org on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 to make your Call for Papers submission.

The 6th Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access (UA) and Assistive Technology (AT), also known as CWUAAT 2012, will take place at the Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, UK on 26-29 March 2012.

We received a call for participation for the workshop theme: “Designing Inclusion for real-world applications”, which refers to the emerging potential and relevance of the latest generations of inclusive design data, tools, techniques and thinking, to mainstream project applications such as healthcare and the design of working environments. Previous research developments have addressed these issues in the context of simple daily living activities based on single tasks. New developments are now extending the scope of the approach into real-world applications.
Inclusive Design Research involves developing tools and guidance for supporting product designers to design for the widest possible population for a given range of capabilities. In the context of demographic changes leading to a greater number of older people, the general field of inclusive design research strives to relate the capabilities of the population to the design of products by better characterising the user. Inclusive populations of older people contain a greater variation in sensory, cognitive and physical user capabilities. These variations may be co-occurring and rapidly changing leading to a demanding design environment.

Important Dates

• Deadline for submission of long and short papers: 15 August, 2011
• Notification of paper acceptance: 19 September, 2011
• Deadline for camera-ready version of submitted papers: 24 October, 2011
• Advance registration (ends): 16 January, 2012
• Late registration (ends): 20 February, 2012
• CWUAAT Workshop: 26 – 29 March, 2012

Electronic submission of papers is now available via the conference website.

They seek original research papers describing investigations within the following broad categories:

• Designing For Real-World Applications: Work And Healthcare
• Designing Inclusive Assistive And Rehabilitation Systems
• Measuring Product Demand And Peoples’ Capabilities
• Mainstreaming And Scaling Technology For Healthcare
• Designing Cognitive Interaction With Emerging Technologies
• Effective Engagement With Industry
• Designing Inclusive Spaces: Architecture And Buildings
• Collaborative And Participatory Design For Inclusion
• Data Issues: Visualizing Inclusion: Mining Of Profile Data
• Legislation, Standards And Policy In Inclusive Design

User Forum

CWUAAT 2012 will contain a single paper session allocated as a user forum. This is intended to give users of assistive technology and beneficiaries of improved accessibility an opportunity for an oral presentation of 25 minutes. Both short and long papers will be accepted in this category and topics and themes are not restricted. We welcome academic position papers, social and research agendas, critiques of provision of technology or poor accessibility, engineering or technical papers regarding product design and usage in work and daily living.

Doctoral Consortium

As one of the most successful aspects of CWUAAT ‘10, the event will again include a Doctoral Consortium. Candidates who submit to the doctoral consortium will be able to attend the workshop at a greatly reduced registration and 10 places have been allocated for this purpose. The two presentations judged to be the best by the consortium panel will win a podium presentation in the main workshop.
Demonstrations. It is hoped that participants will be able to gain hands-on experience with working systems. Space and time will be available for demonstrations of software and hardware.

Organising Committee

Dr Patrick Langdon, Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge
Prof John Clarkson, Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge
Prof Peter Robinson, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Guest Editors

Dr Jonathan Lazar, Towson University, USA
Prof Ann Heylighen, K.U.Leuven, Belgium

The European Conference “Technology with Disabled and Older People: Business development, Building alliances and Impact assessment” will take place on March 28-29, 2011 at the London School of Economics in collaboration with the BIS, AGE Platform Europe, KTN, TSB, and the EU.
Over 40% of the population are either older or disable the demand for personal care at home and in the community is growing. A pool of experience in early provision of services and technologies for both assisted and independent living and active ageing is being steadily gathered across Europe. Many ideas will be presented. Wider deployment rests upon identification of the business opportunities. Cost effective systems are identified to enable safer and less costly home care and presentations will describe these. The prize being a triple win for People, Governments and Business.
The immediate requirements then are improved communication, understanding and cooperation between the diverse parties.
A range of organisations are working with the London School of
Economics to encourage better working practices. Including the Department of Business, Initiative and Skills, AGE Platform Europe, The Technology Strategy Board, The Knowledge Transfer Network, The Knowledge Tree Group, MonAMi project, with industry, and the
Sasakawa Foundation to organise this event.
Abstract Instructions, registration and hotel details.

Press Release / IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BRUSSELS, 16 February 2011 – AEGIS project organises its final Workshop and 2nd International Conference entitled “Accessibility Reaching Everywhere” on 28-30 November 2011 in Brussels, bringing together both end-users (people with disabilities) as well as platform and application accessibility developers, representative organisations, the Assistive Technology industry, and policy makers. Since 2008, the AEGIS consortium (comprising companies such as Vodafone Foundation, Research in Motion, Oracle, and research groups from Cambridge University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, etc.) has been developing an Open Accessibility Framework – comprising open accessibility interfaces, user interface components, developer tools, end-user applications and prototype accessibility solutions for desktops, rich Internet applications and mobile devices.

The workshop on 28 November will focus on the realisations of the AEGIS (Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards) project and provide attendees the opportunity to try out all outcomes of the project. The demonstrated products offer barrier-free access to desktop, mobile and web applications, are open source based and will be freely available.

The conference on 29-30 November will gather a wide array of experts and users in the area of Assistive Technology to discuss scientific and policy developments in accessible technology; showcase relevant projects and initiatives in the area of assistive technology.

Access to both events will be free, but places will be limited.

This event comes ahead of the European Day of People with Disabilities that is marked by the European Commission via a policy conference in the first week of December each year, in close cooperation with the European Disability Forum (EDF).

Invitations for registration, scientific papers and exhibitors will be issued soon.

Both events take place at the Diamant Conference and Business Centre, Boulevard A. Reyerslaan 80, 1030 Brussels. More information is available under www.aegis-project.eu, or contact Ms. Julie Buttier at julie.buttier@epr.eu.

Mission Statement
AEGIS is an Integrated Project (IP) within the ICT programme of FP7 and aims, through user research and prototype development with current and next-generation ICT, to develop and validate the necessary infrastructure and accessibility frameworks needed for deeply embedding accessibility into the desktop, smart phones and rich Internet applications; with a focus on the needs of users with mild, severe or complex disabilities served via assistive technologies; and to propose these results to the appropriate standards organisations for adoption, as well as to make them available through open source as much as possible.

We would like to make you aware of a series of planning meetings and networking opportunities that are occurring at the end of this month – and the beginning of the next – and to invite you to participate as you are able.
An international consortium of people and programs has begun to form with the intention of creating enhancements to the global broadband (wired and wireless) infrastructure to facilitate access by people who would otherwise face barriers due to disability, literacy or aging.
The goal of the group is to bring together cloud, web and platform technologies to create National and Global Public Inclusive Infrastructures that could make access simpler and more affordable, while addressing the needs of groups not adequately served today. It would build up and expand what we have today and enable new types of accessibility and extended-usability technologies and services.
More information about the basic concepts and components of National and Global Public Inclusive Infrastructures can be found at http://NPII.org.
The NPII/GPII concept is not a wholly new concept. Rather, it is a combination and extension of many different existing efforts. Yet it brings them together in a way that has the potential to fundamentally change what is possible and practical.

European Organizational Meetings
The meetings at the end of this month are intended to bring together people who are interested in the concept — and in developing it within Europe. If you are interested in participating in this effort, we hope you will be able to join one of the meetings listed below.
If you are unable to attend any of the meetings but are still interested – let us know by sending an email to join@NPII.org. We will be holding a teleconference call/meeting in late Oct/November for those who cannot make any of these meetings. Also feel free to pass this invitation on to others who may be interested.

The following four meetings have been scheduled:

• In Brussels at ICT 2010, 28 Sept. (Tuesday), 12:30 – 2:00 PM – An ad hoc networking meeting on NPII/GPII, to be held between the two networking sessions on Aging and Built-In Accessibility. Because space is limited to 25 persons, this meeting must be by invitation only, with first priority to related EC projects in the field. To indicate your interest in being part of this meeting, send an email to join@NPII.org.
• In Beaulieu (EC Offices), 29-30 Sept. (Wed. – Thursday) – An extended meeting titled “A Networking, Exploration, and Planning Session On Development of a European and Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure” will provide a longer working period to explore a collaborative European effort in this area.
  This meeting will begin on 29 Sept. at 2:00 PM, ending at 7:00 PM. It will continue on 30 Sept. at 9:00 AM, ending at 6:00 PM.
  The European Commission has provided a venue for the meeting at their Beaulieu offices in Brussels.
  This will be an open meeting. Anyone who is interested in working toward a European and or Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure is invited.
  For security reasons, registration is required. The deadline to sign up is 21 Sept.
  To register, send an email to join@NPII.org with: (1) your name, (2) company or organizational affiliation, and (3) email address. Indicate your desire to attend the 29-30 Sept. meeting. [Note: we understand that due to travel arrangements - not everyone will be able to attend both days.]
  We are exploring the possibility of participation in the meeting by phone. If you cannot attend in person, but wish to participate by phone, please send an email to join@NPII.org with your request to be included by phone, if it becomes available.
• In Madrid at Technosite, 5 Oct. (Tues.) – A workshop at Technosite will consist of a presentation followed by discussion.
• In Seville at AEGIS Conference, 7-8 Oct. (Thurs.-Friday) – The AEGIS Conference will feature a keynote presentation of the NPII concept and roadmap. There will be opportunities for informal networking, with the possibility of a “birds of the feather” meeting sometime during the conference.

There will also be a teleconference late in October or November for those who are interested in working toward an NPII or the GPII, in Europe – (or elsewhere in the world) – but are unable to participate in one of the meetings listed above. Please indicate your interest in participating in such a teleconference by sending an email to join@NPII.org.