Government Partnering with OCAD to Improve Accessibility for Consumers with Disabilities
April 4, 2017 – Accessibility Directorate of Ontario
Ontario is helping businesses and organizations better understand the needs of people with disabilities, while supporting them with new ideas to make their products and services more accessible.
The government is partnering with OCAD University’s Inclusive Design Research Centre to deliver the BIG IDeA, a collaborative pilot program that celebrates successes and promotes innovations in accessibility.
The program features:
- An interactive website that promotes constructive dialogue between businesses and people with disabilities
- Badges and toolkits to recognize accessibility leaders and promote best practices that inspire other businesses
- Map-a-thons, where students and the public can crowd-source updates to apps that map the locations of businesses and rate the accessibility of their services
- Design challenges, such as inviting tech companies to teach their “smart” machines–that recognize speech, give advice or make decisions–to be more responsive to people with disabilities.
The BIG IDeA will help make inclusion top of mind for companies–and customers–so that accessibility becomes an integral part of Ontario’s culture. By helping companies tap into a broader customer base, it can also help expand businesses and grow our economy.
Helping businesses become more accessible is part of the government’s plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives.
Quick Facts
- Ontario is investing $500,000 in the BIG IDeA through the EnAbling Change Program, which supports projects that promote accessibility standards in businesses and organizations.
- The BIG IDeA is first being piloted in Toronto, and will eventually expand across the province.
- Major tech companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple, are working within the BIG IDeA to solve accessibility barriers in machine learning models.
- The BIG IDeA emerged as the leading initiative in an open government engagement process.
- People with disabilities represent a market worth $25 billion in Canada.
- With the passage of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Ontario became an accessibility leader, establishing standards in key areas of daily life and implementing them within clear timeframes.
- Ontario is developing a Provincial Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities to help connect people to jobs and employers to talent.
- Businesses and organizations in Ontario with more than one employee must comply with the Accessible Employment Standard. It requires employers to have accessible hiring practices and workplace policies that support staff with disabilities.