As you may already be aware the Vodafone Foundation have set up the Smart Accessibility Awards:

http://developer.vodafone.com/smartaccess2011/

These awards are to celebrate apps that help people in four key areas: Social participation, independent living, mobility and well-being. They are free to enter and there is a prize fund of €200,000. The awards are now open for entries until 15 October 2011.

As part of this initiative, alongside our friends at Mobile Monday London, we've teamed up with the ICT KTN and Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards to bring you a half-day workshop looking specifically at this area.

The goal of the workshops is to inspire and enable app developers and entrepreneurs to create useful tools for people who have visual, aural, cognitive or other impairments by helping you understand and empathize what life is like for people in this situation. This empathy and understanding is created by bringing together app developers, entrepreneurs and accessibility advocates and people with impairments to exchange information, and allowing developers to experience simulations of being impaired.

App developers who have had the opportunity to experience as directly as possible, first or second-hand, what it means to live with specific impairments, and have been put in touch with the larger community around accessibility, create more effective apps to better the quality of life for everyone. The result not only helps people with major disabilities, but also people with minor or temporary impairments, for example due to ageing or illness.

The format of the workshops will be discussion based and there will be technical people on hand to answer specific questions related to Android, but there will be different speakers and contributors to reflect the local scene. Plenty of time will be allowed for discussion and networking and refreshments will be provided.

We will be announcing our speakers over the next few days. Doors will open at 3pm for a 3.30pm start and we'll be finishing around 8pm. The venue is Dukes 92, in castlefield.

This workshop is kindly hosted by Apadmi, and is in association with Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards and ICT KTN.

PS. As is normal the attendee list will be shared with the supporting organisations:

• Vodafone Smart Accessibility Awards. These are a new global awards to celebrate apps that help people in four key areas: Social participation, independent living, mobility and well-being. They are free to enter and there is a prize fund of €200,000. The awards are now open for entries until 15 October 2011.
• ICT KTN: http://www.ictktn.org.uk. The ICT Knowledge Transfer Network has been established by an industry-led group of leading players, with funding from the Technology Strategy Board. We seek to bring competitive advantage to the UK by promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing between the users and providers of Information and Communications Technologies, and helping to drive innovation in the sector. It's free to join our network.