The 3rd International Conference "Accessible Future" will be held in June

The conference, focusing on persons with disabilities, their needs, and solutions that facilitate their lives and remove barriers, will be held in partnership with Poslovni Dnevnik.
 
ZAGREB, May 23, 2024 - On Wednesday, June 12, 2024, the third international conference "Accessible Future" will take place, addressing the challenges faced by persons with disabilities in modern society. The aim of the event is to connect policymakers and regulators, industry and media, and experts in standardization and technology with users, persons with disabilities, and to raise awareness on this topic within society. Ensuring digital and physical accessibility for everyone in the network activities it regulates is the primary goal of the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries (HAKOM). Additionally, sharing knowledge and experiences and creating a synergistic effect for greater societal progress are key objectives.
 
Final Event of the "Experience is worth its weight in Gold" Project
For the second year in a row, HAKOM is organizing the conference in collaboration with Poslovni Dnevnik as a project partner. The final event of the "Experience is worth its weight in Gold" project will be held within the scope of the Conference. Poslovni dnevnik has been running this project since 2013 in cooperation with the main partner, the Institute for Expertise, Professional Rehabilitation, and Employment of Persons with Disabilities (ZOSI), the association “Zamisli”, and under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family, and Social Policy. The project ensures that students with disabilities gain work experience in Croatian companies.
 
Three Thematic Sessions
This year's conference is also part of an awareness- raising initiative to respect diversity when designing digital solutions or when making physical accessibility and, whenever possible, to perform solutions as universal design so that they can be used by all including persons with disabilities. The conference will include three thematic sessions, presenting new accessibility efforts by the regulator, academia, electronic communications service operators, and the railway passenger undertaking and infrastructure manager. It will also be an opportunity to exchange experiences with international institutions and experts and to hear the needs and feedback from users with various types of disabilities, who are the most important participants in this process. As part of the second session, there will be a panel discussion on the use of artificial intelligence, which will include representatives from disability associations involved in the accessibility project.
 
Cooperation with Academia
In addition to activities aimed at raising social awareness about the proper access to interacting with persons with disabilities, HAKOM has in recent years, in collaboration with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER),  launched a programme that aims to solve  identified challenges faced by persons with disabilities a, all of which resulted in the development of several application solutions and methodologies for creating accessible websites or mobile applications, with the design incorporating the suggestions, desires, and needs of persons with disabilities. An educational game has also been developed to teach proper communication practices with persons with disabilities, along with manuals for conducting workshops on the topic of disabilities for children in elementary schools.
 
More information on cooperation with FER can be seen at the following link.
How it was at last year's conference can be seen here.

A future-friendly conference will be available online on 12 June 2024 from 9:30 on HAKOM YouTube channel.