News

Tennis Australia, Monash University and AKQA have launched Action Audio, an online audio stream designed to make the Australian Open broadcasts accessible for almost 600,000 Australians and 285 million people living with blindness or a vision impairment. Action Audio allows people with blindness or vision impairment to stay connected to the tennis experience throughout the entire match, and follow it in real-time. Action Audio uses Tennis Australia’s real-time ball position data to make the ball ‘audible’ to blind audiences…

When 26-year-old Nathan Johnston tried to connect with people during the peak of last year’s COVID-19 lockdown, he realized how challenging it could be for people living with a disability to use social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. Mr. Johnston, who has cerebral palsy, lives on the New South Wales Far South Coast and has been inspired to start developing a new social media site called Disability Club after feeling isolated during the peak of the pandemic…

The Government of Canada is delivering on its commitment to create a barrier-free Canada with the implementation of the Accessible Canada Act, which will help remove barriers, and increase access and opportunities for persons with disabilities. Today, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough, highlighted the publication of the first-ever proposed Accessible Canada Regulations under the Accessible Canada Act in the Canada Gazette (Part I)…

Advances in the digital economy significantly accelerated by Covid-19 pandemic are creating unprecedented opportunities to build a more inclusive world of work for the more than one billion people with disabilities globally, according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). However, digital barriers also threaten to aggravate existing inequalities and exclusion unless they are countered with effective and targeted initiatives. The report titled ‘An inclusive digital economy for people with disabilities’ was prepared by ILO Global Business and Disability Network (GBDN) and Spanish disability NGO Fundacion ONCE…

The day President Joe Biden was sworn into office, those watching the inauguration saw fire Capt. Andrea Hall, the child of a deaf parent, recite the Pledge of Allegiance – spoken in English and signed. “Let’s just say that’s the first time I’ve ever cried at the pledge,” said Sara Novic, a deaf writer and college instructor based in Philadelphia. “Beyond access, that was representation, and it meant a lot to see her on the big stage as part of the ceremony.”…

A collaborative effort will provide access and inclusion to blind and disabled populations by delivering more than 45 million tactile images to museums, science centers, libraries, schools, and government agencies. There’s more than one way to experience a great work of art, according to a new partnership among the National Federation of the Blind, Getty Images, and Tactile Images, a company that converts pictures into three dimensional versions that can be experienced through touch, hearing, and smell…

Today, Amtrak began accepting claims for monetary compensation for people with mobility disabilities who traveled or wanted to travel from or to one of the 78 stations listed below and encountered accessibility issues at the stations. Claims must be submitted by May 29, 2021. On Dec. 2, 2020, the Department of Justice and Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, entered into an agreement to resolve the department’s findings of disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)…

The Golden State Warriors (the “Warriors”) are the latest high-profile company to have a website-related American with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) lawsuit filed against them. On January 21, 2021, a class action complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the Warriors website, https://shop.warriors.com/, violates the ADA and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (“UCRA”) because it is not fully accessible to blind and visually impaired consumers…

The initiation and maintenance of an effective corporate diversity and inclusion policy is often viewed as being a core responsibility of an organization’s senior management team. While leadership at boardroom level is undoubtedly an essential enabling component, this alone will never deliver optimal outcomes for employees with disabilities. Governments certainly have a role to play in bringing forth the legislative frameworks necessary to scale and foster an ecosystem of organizations adhering to best practice but what of the grassroots?…

It’s nice when a newsroom experiment pays off in unexpected ways. In Arizona, ProPublica teamed up with the Arizona Daily Star to sponsor a story by Amy Silverman that looked into why the state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities turned down thousands of people who sought assistance. The investigative piece has all the heft and rigor you’d expect from a ProPublica deep dive. But what could have simply ended as a robust and impactful piece of journalism transformed into something of an experiment in story forms (20 separate URLs in total, including Spanish translations and audio versions)…