Microsoft Accessibility : Imagine Cup 2008

More awareness and recognition of assistive technology

AnnuskaP — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:58:00 GMT

WebAnywhere did indeed win a Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration! Congratulations! You can read about the awards at: http://matc.mellon.org/press-release.

Imagine Cup Accessibility winner, WebAnywhere, up for today's Mellow Award

AnnuskaP — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:04:00 GMT

Jeff Bigham and Professor Richard Ladner, from University of Washington, are in D.C. today for the 2008 Mellon Awards Ceremony. Their project, WebAnywhere, is nominated for an award, which celebrates technology collaboration in higher education, especially benefitting non-profits. WebAnywhere is a wonderful example of how we can apply technology to solve accessibility problems - in this case, surfing the web and needing the information read aloud to you.

WebAnywhere won the Accessibility Award in Microsoft's 2008 Imagine Cup. So, yes, I'm biased, but I think it has a great chance at today's Mellon Award. The award ceremony is in about an hour. I'll post again, once the winners are officially announced.

Winners chosen for Imagine Cup Accessibility!

AnnuskaP — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:25:00 GMT

The Awards ceremony was yesterday, and all the student winners were announced! The onsite 24-hour Interface Design Accessibility winners were Team JivAd, from France. Throughout their analysis of the design problem and their proposed design solution, they thoughtfully incorporated accessibility requirements. They highlighted aspects of their design that would make it easier for people to use. When more information about the design problem and their solution is published, I will post a link.

Also, WebAnywhere was announced as the winner of an online Imagine Cup competition, Accessible Technology Exceptional Achievement award. WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader that can be used by people on any computer, like public computers.

More information can be found at:

http://imaginecup.com/About/News.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jun08/06-18imagineaccess.mspx

Congratulations to the winning teams, and to all the teams that participated in the Interface Design Challenge. It was a pleasure being the Accessibility captain and watching your creativity shine through.

Accessibility design competition is underway

AnnuskaP — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:50:00 GMT

The Imagine Cup kicked off this week! There are a ton of events happening, with students and judges engaged on in their compeitions. For Accessibility, there was a 24-hour competition, as part of the Interface Design competition. There are 6 teams competiting, from France, Canada, U.S., and China. Surya Vanka is the Interface Design captain, and I'm the Accessibility captain. We'll be posting an interview with Surya once we have a chance to do the final productions steps.

For the 24-hour competition, the students were challenged to re-design a hypothetical mobile and web system. The room was full of anticipation when we handed over the problem statement. It was exciting to see the teams begin brainstorming and wrapping their heads around the problem parameters. Today, they presented their solutions and we were impressed with their talent. We announce the winner tomorrow, so I'll be able to blog more about the design problem and solution ideas after that.

If you want to find out more about the Imagine Cup overall, the main blog is at http://imaginecupfinalsinparis.spaces.live.com/default.aspx. Bonjour!