World's First Online Accessibility Hub Launches Globally

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A unique infrastructure designed by top researchers and ICT experts from Europe, Canada and the US to address the needs of 1 billion people around the world.

A unique online digital hub designed to address the challenges of over 1 billion people globally facing disability, literacy, digital literacy or aging related barriers to using information and communication technologies, was launched during the 2017 Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe (AAATE), held in the UK.

The DeveloperSpace and the Unified Listing - two of the three main pillars of the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) were designed and built by top researchers, assistive technology experts and companies from Europe, Canada and the US to facilitate the creation of accessible solutions in easier, faster and more affordable ways.

The DeveloperSpace and the Unified Listing focus exclusively on accessibility, representing the first digital hub of its kind in the world, providing the resources needed to learn about, create, improve and market accessible products.

"This is about people creating new solutions for people, it is the only place that provides new developers with the resources and information available from all over the web to learn about accessibility and move ideas out into the real world", said Professor Gregg Vanderheiden, Co-Director of the GPII and co-founder of Raising The Floor International, a non-profit organization whose main focus is the development of the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII).

These tools can be used by anyone interested in accessibility and the personalization of digital access, including assistive technology developers, researchers, companies building accessible features into their existing products, mainstream enterprises, public institutions, and policy makers.

The objective is to make it easier and more affordable for all users to adapt any digital technology they come in contact with -computers, smart-phones, TVs, ticket machines -to their individual needs. User´s preferences will be stored in the cloud where they can be called on to adapt to any device anytime, anywhere, so that it is understandable and usable by each person.

"The GPII represents a paradigm shift in e-inclusion, a fresh approach to accessibility based on the capacity to provide "one-size-fits-one" designs through networked digital systems, offering greater choices and helping people with disabilities assert their right to access the digital world anytime, anywhere without explaining, negotiating or justifying their personal needs", explained Jutta Treviranus, Director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) and co-founder of Raising The Floor International.

At the AAATE conference, a group of 100 students from the University of Sheffield participated in the Student Innovation Tournament and some of them used the DeveloperSpace to resolve search for solutions and solve different accessibility challenges.

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