Access For All

The AALIANCE2 Project is pleased to announce the first Stakeholder Workshop of the AALIANCE2 Roadmap “Technologies for AAL solutions: AAL application domains” on February 14, 2012, 9.00–16.30, at The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34 in 56025 Pontedera (Pisa), Italy. Contact persons are f.cavallo@sssup.it, m.aquilano@sssup.it, christian.wehrmann@vdivde-it.de.

AALIANCE2 Project is a Coordination Action funded in the FP7-ICT-2011.7, which focuses on the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions based on advanced ICT technologies for ageing and wellbeing of elderly people in Europe. One of its main objectives is to build consensus upon research priorities in the AAL roadmap and Strategic Research Agenda for the upcoming decades.

This first workshop will focus on the functional areas associable to the AAL application domains (AAL4Person, AAL in the Community) and the relative activities/application scenarios. The objectives are to refine, classify, organize and improve the contents of the first AALIANCE Roadmap, published in March 2010.

Suitable persons for the AALIANCE2 Workshop are experts in the AAL domain, which have experience in some of the following tasks: designing, developing, producing, experimenting, and assessing AAL technologies or studying and defining the main aspects of AAL field. Experts should be AAL technology developers and researchers, ICT service providers and technology suppliers, policy‐makers, standardization organizations, health and care service organizations, caregivers, etc.

We would like to invite you (or some of your staff) to participate in this Workshop as Experts in the field of the AAL or responsible in Projects related to AAL and Ageing Well. The participation in the Workshop is limited to a small number of experts, therefore we ask you to confirm your participation as soon as possible, since the experts will be accepted based on the “who first confirms, first participates in”.
We gently ask you to extend this invitation also to all partners of the AAL project in which you are involved in.

If you accept to participate in the Workshop, you will receive guidelines to participate in the event and contents of the previous AALIANCE Roadmap.

A variety of new features greatly enhance the accessibility of Android 4.0 for blind or visually impaired users. Most important is a new explore-by-touch mode that lets users navigate without having to see the screen. Touching the screen once triggers audible feedback that identifies the UI component below; a second touch in the same component activates it with a full touch event. The new mode is especially important to support users on new devices that use virtual buttons in the System Bar, rather than dedicated hardware buttons or trackballs. Also, standard apps are updated to offer an improved accessibility experience. The Browser supports a script-based screen reader for reading favorite web content and navigating sites. For improved readability, users can also increase the default font size used across the system.

The accessibility experience begins at first setup — a simple touch gesture during setup (clockwise square from upper left) activates all accessibility features and loads a setup tutorial. Once accessibility features are active, everything visible on the screen can be spoken aloud by the standard screen reader.
Source: Android

14 June 2011 – Brussels – In the week of the first EU Digital Assembly in Brussels, Vodafone Foundation launched the Smart Accessibility Awards. This is a new competition to promote the development of IT applications designed to improve the lives of people with disabilities and older people to help them become more actively involved in society.
The programme is supported and co-organized by AGE Platform Europe, the European network of around 160 organisations of and for people aged 50+, and the European Disability Forum (EDF), the NGO that represents the interests of 80 million Europeans with disabilities.
Launched in Brussels, the competition will award the best smartphone application across four different categories as follows:

• Social participation: This refers to applications which help users to participate actively in today’s society and benefit from the facilities that the new technologies can offer, whatever their age, disability and/or capacity (E.g. use the web and social media through mobile devices, contact people using mobile devices to the same extent as everyone, etc).
• Independent living: This refers to applications which help users to be more autonomous and perform daily tasks independently (E.g. using domestic appliances such as washing machine or refrigerator, opening doors safely, etc).
• Mobility: This refers to applications which enable users to move around more freely and safely using the whole range of transport modes. It can also refer to the use of mobile devices to be guided in unknown environment (e.g. using GPS option, etc).
• Wellbeing: This refers to applications which improve the users’ health and as well as overall feeling of wellbeing.

The competition is open from 14 June 2011 to 15 October 2011. All qualifying entries will be evaluated in November by a jury, consisting of representatives from AGE Platform Europe, European Disability Forum and Vodafone Foundation. Twelve finalists will be selected and requested to present their application before the final jury in Brussels in early December 2011 at a live final, where the four overall winners will be chosen. The total prize fund of the €200k will be split equally between the four winners.
Vodafone Foundation Director, Andrew Dunnett said “The Vodafone Foundation is keen to help as many people as possible benefit from new technologies. The Smart Accessibility Awards will help developers create apps that can really make a difference to people’s lives – we are thrilled to be able to support such an important initiative.”
Anne-Sophie Parent, AGE Platform Europe Secretary General, said “We are pleased to be involved in a project that supports our efforts towards building a more inclusive society. Digital inclusion is key to ensuring as many people as possible remain actively involved in their communities and we should make sure every citizen is empowered to do so, whatever their age or capacities. We hope this competition will help reach that goal and also contribute to the ‘European Year 2012 for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations’ where the objective is to increase older people’s active participation in society and promote independent living in old age. ”
Rodolfo Cattani, EDF Executive Member, said; “Being part of this competition is very important for us. Communication technologies are vital to making possible the inclusion of persons with disabilities. When the mobile applications are not accessible, it can create new obstacles and can lead to new forms of discrimination. We look forward to seeing accessible apps.”
For more information on the contest and submit your entry: http://developer.vodafone.com/smartaccess2011/+

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.

BRAID is currently in the process of elaborating and refining a plan of actions as part of the aimed strategic research agenda for ICT and Ageing. A well conceived roadmap needs to be drawn on the basis of an inspiring vision of what society wants to achieve in future. Therefore we are proceeding with the development of a vision-driven roadmap.
In terms of the roadmapping process, BRAID follows an approach based on the classical scientific method, adapting a structured method well tested in previous roadmapping projects (e.g. THINKcreative, VOmap, ePAL). In brief, after the identification and characterization of the baseline, definition of desirable scenarios, identification of main drivers and trends, a gap analysis was performed. In sequence, a first plan of actions was proposed to cover all aspects of the vision, according to each one of the selected life settings: Independent living, Healthy living, Occupation in life, and Recreation in life. Next phases will focus on detailing the plan of actions and elaborating an implementation plan.
Consensus-building and acceptance by a large community of stakeholders is an important validation mechanism for a useful roadmap. Therefore, in parallel with the development of the research agenda, BRAID is organizing a number of workshops with stakeholders in order to collect feedback and reach consensus.
For more information on the BRAID roadmapping process please contact: Luis M. Camarinha-Matos.
More information at www.braidproject.eu.

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.