Accessibility is not widely integrated into the development of new and emerging technologies. As part of our ongoing research, we aim to enhance students’ understanding of digital accessibility as they learn to design, develop, and build new technologies with the needs of people with disabilities in mind. As a first step, in collaboration with Columbia University’s Women in Computer Science organization, we organized accessibility-themed components to be integrated into their diversity-themed hackathon DivHacks, which will occurred October 2021.
As a follow up, alongside Dr. Megan Hofmann, we organized the inaugural AccessHack, an accessible, virtual hackathon focused on building assistive technologies. AccessHack will return in the Spring of 2024, so stay tuned!