ITU has held the third edition of the Regional Competition for Innovative Digital Solutions for Accessible Europe. This competition aimed to promote innovative and creative digital solutions to benefit persons with disabilities (PwD), bringing more social inclusion and interaction, comfort, and quality of life to their daily routine through mobile technologies.
The competition sought solutions from individuals and teams across the private, public, non-profit and academic sectors that addressed the needs of persons with vision, hearing, speech, cognitive and physical disabilities. In particular, the competition expected new concepts of digital applications or interfaces designed to remove barriers, helping PwDs live a more independent life, participate in cultural events or political processes, benefit from education or entertainment, or obtain a job.
Regional competition timeline and milestones
Evaluation phase
As a result of the Call for Competition (the link to the call), ITU received 97 submissions from 29 different countries in the Region. The solutions were reviewed by an independent Evaluation Committee (the link to the Evaluation Committee profile) composed of experts from European disability associations and ICT Accessibility experts who responded to our open Call for Evaluators (the link to the call). Evaluators gathered on 24 February 2021 through a virtual meeting where they spent time working to identify finalists and winners of the competition.
Nominated finalists and winners
The nominated finalists (the link to the finalists' information) for the five categories are the following:
- Persons who are deaf or hard of hearing: Visualfy (winner), SignLab, and World in Sign EU GmbH
- Persons with visual impairment: RemmedVR (winner), Project Ray and Feelif
- Persons with speech impairment: Voiceitt (winner), APP-SEC-NETWORK and Pictogram
- Persons with cognitive and intellectual disabilities: Tu Dortmund University (winner), Capito App and Claro Software
- Persons with physical disabilities: Magicview (winner), Travaxy and Lifetool
Nominated candidates are invited to participate in Accessible Europe, where their pitching presentations took place on 23 March 2021, followed by an Award Ceremony announcing winners and runner-ups for each category before an audience comprising a wide range of experts and interested stakeholders.
Winners of the Regional Competition
The winners were announced by members of the Evaluation Committee. Visualfy won Category 1, REMEDVR was declared winner in Category 2, VoiceItt won in Category 3, whereas Easy Reading and Magic View were winners in Categories 4 and 5, respectively. The winners receive special recognition of Accessible Europe by ITU for their achievements. They will be included in the ITU Smart Incubator's capacity building program, becoming active participants in the policy discourse, standardization, and programming processes of ITU. Moreover, all finalists, providing innovative digital solutions for Accessible Europe, will benefit from the Curation Programme, where ITU and its partner will actively promoting and connect innovators to its network.
For more details on the forum and competition, please visit our event website.
