OTTAWA – The Broadcasting Accessibility Fund will award $723,500 in grants to seven projects designed to advance accessibility to broadcasting content for Canadians with disabilities.
The projects represent the first ever selected by the Board of Directors for grant awards. The inaugural recipients are:
– Accessible Media Production Course, Mohawk College: $80,000 – Student journalists will receive mandatory, intensive training in producing content that is accessible across all media platforms.
– Making CBC Radio Accessible, CBC: $62,000 – New speech-to-text conversion technology will be used to post daily transcripts of CBC’s award-winning radio program The Current to CBC.ca. The Current reaches some 2.3 million Canadians each week. In addition, one American Sign Language (ASL) interpreted radio documentary will be filmed and posted to CBC.ca each month.
– Tecla Remote, Komodo Open Lab: $77,500 – A Tecla switch device will enable users with limited mobility to control a range of media devices using the same controls used to operate wheelchairs.
– Designing Screen Reading Capabilities for the 10-foot User Interface, Rogers Communications: $140,000 – Extensive research on the development of simplified and inclusive mechanisms to assist blind and low vision users to discover and consume video content.
– Radio with a Voice, Vues et Voix: $116,000 – Development of a fully accessible web platform for Vues et Voix radio content focusing on disability- and accessibility- related stories and issues in the French language.
– Broadcasting Accessibility Education for Hard of Hearing Canadians, Canadian Hard of Hearing Association: $125,000 – An extensive project to assist hard of hearing Canadians with the accessible features of media devices, designed to build a base of knowledge including the producing of a web-based guide to device accessibility.
– Enhanced real-time and post-production captioning for VoiceWriter captioning software, Mediac Systems LLC: $123,000 – Will focus on updating existing software and developing new in-roads to voice recognition technologies in order to improve both real time (live) and post production captioning processes.
“We received a number of exceptionally strong applications,” said CEO/funding officer Richard Cavanagh, in the news release. “Since the inception of the Fund, there has been a strong belief that we would tap into some of the best talent, skills and experience in the field of broadcasting accessibility. The projects approved by our Board clearly demonstrate that this is the case.”
Created as part of the tangible benefits package associated with Bell Canada’s acquisition of CTV, the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund was established as an independent and impartial funding body supporting innovative projects to increase the accessibility of broadcasting content in Canada.
