About the Workshop:
This workshop aims to explore the role of collaboration and community-building in accessibility research within resource-limited contexts. Specifically, we seek to understand how inclusive research practices can inform cost trade-offs and contribute to the development of affordable assistive technologies. The goal of this workshop is to bring together a diverse group of participants, including early-career and experienced researchers, educators, disability activists, designers, and members of the disabled community. The workshop aims to foster a global community of accessibility and ICTD researchers and produce guidelines on methods and best practices for collaboration and capacity building with disabled communities and researchers across borders. A selection of position papers from the workshop participants will be published in an article in ACM Interactions Magazine.
Workshop Date: Friday, October 24: 9:00 AM – 1:30 PM (EST)
Format: Virtual Workshop
Call for Participation:
We invite interested participants to submit position papers, or reflection papers on past publications (700-800 words, in PDF format) on topics including, but not limited to, the following:
• Accessibility research and capacity building both within and/ or across borders;
• Research on disability rights and access in Global South;
• Global collaboration and community-driven research;
• Sustainable innovation and accessibility research perspectives on HCI4D;
To encourage broader participation, we also invite alternative submission formats—such as pictorials, short videos, or posters.
Submission Details:
Please submit your work here: Link
Deadline: August 12, 2025 AOE (Extended)
Notification of Acceptance: August 20, 2025
Early Bird Registration: August 28, 2025
At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and must register for the workshop.
Workshop Format:
The total time of the workshop will be 4.5 hours.
Structure:
• Introductory remarks from the Organizer
• Presentation from the attendees
Break (10 minutes)
• Fireside chat: Learning about Accessibility Research Practices across the Borders
We will have a panel of informal, conversational talk among members of the organizing committee and the workshop attendees. Panelists from the organizing committee, who are experienced researchers across the borders, will share their experiences and challenges in conducting accessibility and ICTD research. Additionally, they will address questions from attendees and engage in meaningful dialogue with them.
Break (10 minutes)
Birds of a Feather: Accessibility Research Across Border
We will have four breakout rooms, each focused on the following themes: (i) Accessibility research and capacity building across borders; (ii) Research on disability rights and access in the Global South; (iii) Global collaboration, ethics and community-driven research; and (iv) Sustainable innovation and accessibility research perspectives on HCI4D. Workshop attendees and the members of the organizing committee will discuss the current challenges, and ways to mitigate the challenges for their specific theme.
Break (10 minutes)
• Balloon Debate
We will have the second panel among the organizers and the attendees. We will use the format of Balloon debate, where each panelist will be assigned a character with their consent. The characters will be reviewers, funding agency, junior researcher, researcher from Global south, senior researcher and PI of a large fund, etc. We aim to bring out the critical and sensitive factors and challenges, which are less spoken in terms of research collaboration across borders.
• Final Remarks:
The final remarks session will last approximately 10 minutes, during which we will summarize the workshop learning and share ideas for the next steps to involve more researchers in the critical intersection of Accessibility and ICTD research.
Organizers:
Tamanna Motahar, Postdoctoral Researcher - Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology (CREATE), University of Washington
Vaishnav Kameswaran, Postdoctoral Researcher - Values-Centered Artificial Intelligence (VCAI) initiative, University of Maryland, College Park
Sara Moin, PhD Researcher, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi
Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Postdoctoral fellow, Saarland University
Maitraye Das, Assistant Professor, Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University
Giulia Barbareschi, Incoming Professor of Inclusive Technology and Collective Engagement, University of Duisburg-Essen
Laura S. Gaytán-Lugo, Assistant Professor, Universidad de Colima
Aditya Vashistha, Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Science, Cornell University
Kurtis Heimerl, Associate Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science, University of Washington
Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Neha Kumar, Associate Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech
Nova Ahmed, Professor, North South University
Maya Cakmak, Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science, University of Washington
Contact: tmotahar@cs.washington.edu, saram@iiitd.ac.in