Technology developers were given something to dream about over Memorial Day, with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy announcing its first disability-related application challenge just before the long weekend.
The ODEP press release stated the goals of the challenge is to help boost employment opportunities for people with disabilities in a number of areas, including recruitment tools for employers, skill-building, job training, and workplace accessibility. The top three submissions will divide the $10,000 purse and, perhaps more importantly, receive prominent exposure for their product through ODEP communication channels.
Why would exposure trump cold, hard cash? Because whatever the winning apps may be could prove more lucrative for the developer than the prize money. Consider the Labor Department’s 40,000+ Twitter followers, plus another 14,000+ on Facebook, and you have an audience tuned in and ready to share information about new products that appeal to a largely untapped consumer base with a combined $1 trillion in discretionary spending power; not to mention all the employers who would now have off-the-shelf solutions for accommodating people with disabilities in the workplace.
Kel Smith, founder of the accessibility technology company, Anikto, LLC, put it succinctly earlier this month in this interview he did with Austin-American Statesman reporter, Omar Gallaga:
You have to understand that people who have a disability that prevents them from leaving the home will be shopping from home. You don’t want to have barriers for that purchasing decision.
The larger subject of Gallaga’s article is the challenge of developing accessible technology that enable people with disabilities to be more included in the communities where they live and work — a subject that Smith just happens to be working on a book about. Smith tells Gallaga that he is more hopeful now about the potential for achieving greater accessibility and inclusion through technology than when he began working on Digital Outcasts: Moving Technology Forward without Leaving People Behind:
I went in with the premise that there’s entire populations of people who are being left behind; they’re not being considered. Then I realized — they’re the ones driving the innovation and moving it forward. They’re forming their own solutions at this very grass-roots level.
Indeed, from the very beginnings of this blog, we’ve found numerous technological innovations that help level the playing field for people with disabilities when it comes to interviewing for jobs or exploring a variety of employment opportunities, from temporary work in contract services to pursuing a full-fledged career. We look forward to seeing the results of ODEP’s challenge.
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Image by daveynin, used under its Creative Commons license.
Thank you for the mention!