Knowbility concluded its 19th Annual OpenAIR Competition last Thursday with an awards ceremony and celebration at the Sterling Events Center in Austin. This year the competition added a higher education competition in addition to the industry professional track. Teams were provided accessibility training, access to some of the best accessibility mentors in the world and were given access to IBM’s leading edge accessibility testing tool, the Dynamic Assessment Plugin (DAP).
The newly formed higher education track included teams from Huston-Tillotson, the University of Texas at Austin, Cal State University Long Beach, University of Central Florida, University of Michigan, and Manchester Metropolitan University. The goal of the initiative was to provide students of web design with principles for accessible design from experts in the field, as well as the real-world experience that comes with working with a professional client.
The first-place winner for the University Competition was team HiveEngine of Cal State University Long Beach for their work on J'accede Quebec. The Dirty Six, another team out of CSULB, took home the third-place prize, while team A2 Accessibility of the University of Michigan took second place. Maximus of Cognizant in India won first place in the industry professional track for their work on the site for the Alpha to Omega Learning Centre, a nonprofit organization based in Singapore and India. Second place went to Unchain my Art (Microassist) for 4C with third place going to GM Hit (GM) for their work on Austin German Shepard Rescue. A panel of usability experts selected the winning sites from over a dozen fully accessible sites created for both local and international nonprofits.
To register as a team or non-profit for the program's 20th season visit the OpenAIR website or contact Jessica Looney at jlooney@knowbility.org