Access For All

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.

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.

Download the call for papers also as pdf.

We kindly invite you and your colleagues to submit papers in the following categories:

• Scientific papers
• Technical papers

Conference topics (non-exhaustive list):

• Accessible desktop applications (AT, developer tools and accessible applications)
• Accessible mobile applications (AT, developer tools and accessible applications)
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (AT, developer tools and accessible applications)
• Accessibility and Standardisation (e.g. ISO, eInclusion, Policies, Legislation)
• Accessibility and Usability (e.g. Design for All)
• Accessibility research (e.g. Assistive technology usage by end-users and their satisfaction, innovative AT training via accessible e-learning)

Important dates:

• Abstract submission deadline: 30th April 2011
• Notification of acceptance abstract submission: 31st of May 2011
• Paper submission deadline: 30th June 2011
• Notification of acceptance and outcome of review process: 15th September 2011
• Final camera ready papers: 31 October 2011
• Registration by 31st October 2011

Abstracts submission:

Abstracts submitted in the context of one of the above topics should not exceed 500 words. The title, authors and their contact and affiliation details (authors’ email address, telephone and fax number and affiliation name and address) as well as keywords (up to five) should be included.

Under the title of your abstract, please quote the relevant conference topic. We would strongly recommend you to propose more than one conference topics, if applicable, quoting them in priority order.

Authors who are unable to provide an electronic version or have other circumstances that prevent such submission must contact us (info@aegis-project.eu) prior to submission to discuss alternative options.

Abstracts should be submitted to info@aegis-project.eu by 30th April 2011.

Submission declaration:

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Any manuscript not complying with the above requirements will not be accepted.

Publications:

Abstracts and camera-ready papers as well as exhibition applications will be reviewed by the ÆGIS Scientific Committee. The final versions of the accepted camera-ready papers will be published and will be made available during the conference. The authors of each accepted submission are required to give a presentation at the conference and must register by 31 October 2011.

In addition, the authors of the accepted technical papers will be invited to publish their software (where relevant) in the Open Source Community.

Looking forward to meet you and welcome you to our Community!

Guidelines for Final Paper:

Download Guidelines for Final Papers (.doc).

As we reported earlier, 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.
Registration is now open.

This informal workshop, jointly organised in collaboration with BSI (British Standards Institution) and JISC CETIS, takes advantage of the presence in the UK of a number of international standards developers and strategists to foster discussion and exchange between communities around recent and ongoing international and UK work in Accessibility Standards.
This workshop will be held on Monday 28th February, 2011 in London and will include presentations from both the UK and international accessibility communities.
This is a unique opportunity with confirmed speakers from the following organisations: Axelrod Access For All, BBC, BSI, Information Technology Industry Council, Microsoft, UKOLN, and the University of Saskatchewan.
Further information, including registration details, is available here.

On June 28, 2011, the 1st Workshop on Game Accessibility: Xtreme Interaction Design (GAXID) will take place, in conjunction with the Foundations of Digital Interactive Games 2011. Place to be is Bordeaux France.
Video games have evolved from an obscure pastime to a force of change that is transforming the way people perceive, learn about, and interact with the world around them. The emergence of more natural, immersive and healthier forms of interaction –through the use of whole-body gestures– has propelled video gaming to the cutting edge of human computer interaction design. Currently, an estimated 63% of the U.S. population plays video games. Beyond pure entertainment, video games are increasingly used for more serious applications such as education, rehabilitation and health. Unfortunately a significant number of people encounter barriers when playing video games, due to a disability, though the social, educational and health opportunities currently offered by games could potentially benefit them the most.
How can you control an avatar in a first person shooter using an eye tracker? How do you play an exercise game without visual feedback? How can you play guitar hero without music or audio? How do you play a real time strategy game using switch input? An ”extreme interaction design” approach is required to engineer access solutions for the most extreme players that can: (1) meet the stringent access requirements of games; (2) convey large amounts of feedback in compensatory modalities; and (3) reduce or automate large amounts of input options to their essence; all while keeping the game fun to play and balanced for able bodied players.
The objective of this workshop is to build an active research community that can generate ideas that have the potential to significantly advance this emerging field and turn disability into a driver of innovation for player-game-interaction.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Experiences/case studies with accessible games for players with visual, cognitive, motor and auditory impairments
- User studies with accessible games and studies that assess how different impairments affect the ability to play games
- Understanding requirements of players with disabilities
- Novel Game Interfaces and Player Game Interaction Techniques
- Sensory Substitution (Sonification/Haptification) Interfaces
- Switch Access Control schemes (Scanning)
- Adaptive Interfaces for games
- Social/Inclusive gaming
- Game Interfaces for Elderly / Children
- Metrics/Evaluation Methods for games accessibility
- Guidelines for developing accessible games
- Cost benefit analysis of accessible games
- Educators, Health Researchers working with players with disabilities.
For detailed and up-to-date information about GAXID 2011, please visit ga.fdg2011.org.

The Accessibility Conference (Guelph ON Canada) takes place on 31 May – 1 June 2011 at the University of Guelph.

More information at the event website.