COAT Access: M-Enabling Summit 2013 Advances Accessible Technology

WASHINGTON (June 14, 2013) —

So many people from the COAT community either attended or participated at the recent M-Enabling Summit 2013 held at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel June 6-7, 2013  in Arlington, VA that listing everybody runs the risk of leaving someone out! According to the conference organizers, there were over 450 attendees and 147 speakers participating in over thirty sessions focused on diverse topics.  The aim of the conference was to promote wireless (or mobile) accessible and assistive applications and services for seniors and for people with disabilities.  Topics addressed included operating systems, handsets, and tablets amid discussion of issues such as banking, outreach, education, the status of regulations and implementation of the 21st CVAA, and all the ways how independence and empowerment can be advanced by these new technologies, if accessible (e.g., in gaming, transportation).

As Axel Leblois, the executive director of G3ict, the conference convener noted: “With the increased processing power of mobile devices and expanded network bandwidth many more innovative solutions are now possible. ... handsets, tablets, operating systems, cloud-based applications and global economies of scale ... point towards a growing opportunity for developers to bring life-enhancing solutions for hundreds of millions of seniors and persons with disabilities around the world.” 

Nearly everyone agrees that the topics, the speakers and the conference itself was a big success as it brought together ideas, people and technology at a great location. Some photo snaps from the event are online in the COAT Facebook group here.

To follow up there are several places to get further information:

• Videos (captioned) from M-Enabling 2013 summit can be found online at WebableTV.
• Proceedings (speeches, slides, powerpoints etc ) will be posted to the G3ICT conference website here shortly. 
• Exhibitors, with links, are listed online. Sponsors of the event are listed online.
• Upcoming is a similar event, M-Enabling Australasia 2013, to be held at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Australia August 14-15, 2013.  Register online.

As in 2011, COAT was a non-profit disability community sponsor of M-Enabling Summit 2013 along with several other disability groups such as the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), RaisingTheFloor, Telecommunications for the Deaf Inc (TDI) and the World Institute on Disability(WID), all of whom were active and founding member organizations of COAT.