Events & Activities

Join us for our 8th annual Signal Centers Accessibility Awareness Summit. This event provides nonprofits and agencies the opportunity to showcase products and services that support accessibility. Held in conjunction with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, this event connects organizations with an estimated 150 attendees, fostering awareness, collaboration, and access to vital resources. Lunch will be provided. This year’s theme, “Movement is Life,” reflects a simple truth: movement is fundamental to being human. Our health and well-being depend on our ability to move — physically through our environments, socially within our communities, and even virtually through technology that connects us to work, learning, and one another. When movement is limited, opportunity is limited. The summit celebrates how assistive technology restores and reimagines movement in all its forms, breaking down barriers in schools, workplaces, homes, and communities and helping build a world where everyone can participate fully.

May 21, 2026 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Wolford Family Athletic Center, UTC Campus 615 McCallie Ave., Chattanooga, TN 37403

This forum showcases accessibility work led by government, with presentations and discussions from across the public service. While the focus is on government practice and initiatives, the forum is open to anyone interested in digital accessibility. This free event will spotlight practical conversations and discussions about what’s working well, what’s making a difference, and what others can learn from and apply in their own work. Live captions and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) interpreters will be available.

Am 21. Mai 2026 ist Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Nutzen Sie diesen Tag und nehmen am eLeDia.summit teil: einem kostenlosen Online-Event rund um digitale Barrierefreiheit. Zusammen mit unseren Partnern ReadSpeaker, Pfennigparade, Brickfield Education Lab und Think Modular bieten wir Ihnen kompakte Vorträge, konkrete Tools und Best Practices für inklusives Lernen und Lehren.

Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day with us as we explore the transformation of digital accessibility from a legal checkbox into a true benchmark of service quality. This landmark event brings together distinguished leaders from public administration, private sector executives, and top-tier experts to discuss the future of inclusive design.

The conference is divided into three thematic blocks:

I. Public Sector: Focuses on shifting from “one-off projects” to systemic management and organizational culture within public entities.

II. Seniors in the Digital World: Discusses designing services for the 60+ generation, balancing safety, simple language, and user autonomy.

III. Private Sector: Explores the new market reality and legal obligations (EAA/PAD), demonstrating how accessibility provides a competitive advantage in business.

This is a must-attend event for decision-makers and specialists committed to building responsible, user-centric digital ecosystems. Join us in person or online (Zoom)

At Coles, we’re passionate about ensuring our digital experiences are accessible for all our customers. This year, we’re hosting an internal event in collaboration with Rebus Theatre called Stages of Empathy. This immersive theatre experience explores real-life scenarios of exclusion and inaccessibility. The project is led by actors with disability and funded by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Through this experience, we aim to help the digital teams we work with build a deeper understanding of accessibility and bring greater empathy to the products and services they design every day. We’ll also be creating how-to videos showcasing built-in mobile phone accessibility features to help as many customers as possible shop on the Coles App with ease. From using large text settings to make content easier to read, to voice control that enables hands-free shopping from home, these guides will help customers make the most of accessibility features available on their devices.

Join us in celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) by pledging your time to improve accessibility in WordPress. Pledge time to work on a project of your choice that meaningfully improves accessibility in WordPress core, a WordPress plugin or theme, or on your own WordPress website. Not sure how you can help? Participate by testing free WordPress themes for accessibility and providing feedback to their developers! Join us for a live theme accessibility testing workshop on Zoom. 10:00 AM – Noon U.S. Central (3:00-5:00 PM UTC) Get a walk-through of the WordPress theme accessibility-ready testing process and contribute to WordPress while you attend! This isn’t just a “sit and watch” webinar. Attendees will learn by doing as Amber Hinds, CEO of Equalize Digital, walks you through the testing process for real themes, with Q&A throughout. You’ll leave the session with testing complete or in process and the ability to share immediate feedback with theme developers as your GAAD contribution. The webinar will have CART captions on Zoom and is pre-approved for IAAP continuing education credits.

This May 21, ServiceNow is marking Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) with a live fireside chat on accessibility, inclusion, and what it really takes to build products that work for everyone. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and join VP of Accessibility & Globalization, Eamon McErlean, alongside two ServiceNow customers for an honest, open conversation about the state of digital accessibility — where the industry is making real progress, where the gaps remain, and what organizations can do right now to move the needle. Bring your questions for the Q&A session at the end of the session. Whether you’re an accessibility practitioner, a product leader, or just getting started on your accessibility journey, this session is for you.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) 2026 will be celebrated in Bangladesh under the theme: “Design, Develop, Deliver: Accessibility at Every Step.” The event is organized by the Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme in collaboration with UNDP Bangladesh, Sightsavers International, and Friendship (INGO). The celebration aims to promote digital accessibility and inclusive technology for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh.

The program will include:

• Exhibition on disability innovation and assistive technology
• Accessibility awareness sessions
• Government and private sector engagement
• Recognition of organizations ensuring accessible digital services
• Networking among policymakers, development partners, disability organizations, innovators, and accessibility professionals

Bangladesh has made significant progress in digital accessibility through policy development, accessible government services, and inclusive innovation initiatives led by the a2i Disability Innovation Lab. The event will bring together representatives from government ministries, development organizations, private sector companies, accessibility experts, organizations of persons with disabilities, financial institutions, media, and innovators to advance inclusive digital transformation.

Planned inside the ‘Voice for All’ European project, the webinar will train participants in how to design and implement different kinds of accessible communication campaigns that contribute to the democratic process, including the relevance of different media for reaching specific target groups and the importance of tailoring language to the audience. Promoted by Cerebral Palsy Europe, curated by Fightthestroke Foundation.

As the European Union ushers in a new era of digital governance, researchers and developers face a burgeoning “Accessibility Paradox.” On one hand, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) mandates that digital services and public infrastructures be proactively inclusive, often requiring systems to adapt to the specific needs of users with disabilities. On the other, the EU AI Act introduces stringent prohibitions on “biometric categorisation,” strictly regulating or banning the use of AI to infer sensitive characteristics, such as disability status, for the purpose of data harvesting or model training.

This webinar explores the critical tension between these two landmark regulations. While the EAA pushes for “smart” environments that recognise and respond to human diversity, the AI Act seeks to protect citizens from being “labelled” or profiled by automated systems. This creates a complex landscape for those working in urban planning and digital co-creation: How can we build AI-driven tools that provide seamless accessibility without infringing on biometric privacy? In practice, this paradox is intensified by institutional data deserts, where the lived accessibility needs of vulnerable groups are poorly captured, forcing designers to choose between inference, exclusion, or human mediation.

Drawing on research, this webinar will dissect the legal “gray areas” of AI-mediated outreach. Key discussion points include:

• The distinction between prohibited biometric profiling and legitimate assistive personalisation.
• Strategies for designing privacy-preserving accessibility that prioritise user-led declarations over autonomous system-led detection.
• A clash of rules: Why fixed AI laws and ‘one-time’ consent don’t work for the diverse and changing needs of neurodivergent people
• The challenges of maintaining “human-to-human” connection in digital co-creation tools, such as chatbots, while ensuring they do not become barriers for older or digitally excluded populations.
• Governance tensions and the role of civil society: How can accessible, rights-based AI systems be meaningfully designed and implemented if civil society organisations representing marginalised communities are structurally excluded from regulatory deliberations and co-creation processes?

By reframing these regulatory hurdles as design opportunities, this webinar provides a roadmap for “Double Compliance”, ensuring that the next generation of AI tools is not only technologically advanced but also ethically grounded and universally accessible.

Webinar Outline

Total time: 90 minutes

• 11:00 – 11:05: Welcome Address by Sarah Anne McDonagh (UAB)
• 11:05 – 11:20 When Inclusion Meets Prohibition: The Accessibility Paradox in EU AI Law (Daphne, DBC diadikasia, ALFIE)
• 11:20 – 11:35 Civil Society and the AI Governance Paradox (Alexandros Minotakis, University College Dublin, FORSEE)
• 11:35 – 11:50: The road to Paradox Hell may be paved with the best of intentions (Haris Shekeris, Catalink, ALFIE)
• 11:50 – 12:20 Debate & Open Discussion (Q&A)
• 12:20 – 12:30: Wrap up Sarah McDonagh (UAB)