£48,000 up for grabs in Digital Inclusion Innovation Content

Are you a digital guru, app developer or data expert?  If so, take a look at the Digital Inclusion Innovation Contest, it could be right up your street.
The competition is a joint initiative with IC tomorrow, the Newspaper Licensing Agency, Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Scope, and the University of York.  Three awards of up to £48,000 each are available for successful applicants able to develop a prototype application or service which addresses the specific challenges of each partner organisation. 
The winners will be picked from companies or developers who enter services or applications that aid digital inclusion in three categories of innovation:
• one award of up to £48,000 for the development of a prototype service or application in the ‘sensory assistance’ challenge area
• one award of up to £48,000 for the development of a prototype service or application in the ‘inclusive media’ challenge area
• one award of up to £48,000 for the development of a prototype service or application in the ‘accessible Internet of Things’ challenge area
 
The NLA will be assisting in judging the second, inclusive media challenge award.  Working with the NLA’s eClips service, the RNIB has been able to amend the way in which data can be interrogated and then delivered, creating some software that will converts the NLA data into high-quality synthetic speech.  The files RNIB derives allow users to navigate easily and seamlessly within the newspaper or magazine, and give the choice of access through synthetic speech or text.  This is a real help to visually impaired people who want to read newspapers.
 
This challenge asks developers to develop a new app to improve the experience for visually impaired mobile users.  The deadline for applications for the IC tomorrow ‘Digital Inclusion Innovation Contest’ is Tuesday 8 January 2013 at 12noon.
It is open to any UK-based company or developer – so please get involved!

David Pugh

Managing Director, NLA