NSF Convergence Accelerator: Accelerating Disability Inclusion in Workplaces through Technology

残疾人的劳动市场参与率明显低于非残疾人。世界上有超过10亿的残疾人，他们为开发和提供产品和服务提供了就业人才。这一群体在平等地为社会做出贡献方面所面临的挑战，不仅影响到我们的经济，也影响到人权、平等、公平和多样性。智力优势：研讨会的创新之处在于，它具有前瞻性（先发制人，而不是反动），它制定了一个研究议程，涵盖了与人为因素、社会和行为科学相结合的各种新兴和预期的技术发展。此外，通过采取全面和通用的设计观点，它计划考虑所有主要的残疾（视觉，听觉，认知和智力，身体和行动，以及这些的组合）。研讨会的重点是开发具体的辅助技术，以便将残疾人士纳入未来的工作队伍，以及所需的相关教育和培训措施。项目的参与者包括为残疾人服务的非营利组织、残疾人雇主、劳动力培训机构、国家残疾人包容倡导者、学术界和工业界的研究人员。更广泛的影响：更广泛的社会影响包括：1)工作工具和技术的发展（以及相关的技术转让），这增加了残疾人和一般人群的劳动力参与和生产力；2)为其他类似的未来努力（工作之外）创造一个模式，以解决残疾包容问题。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The labor market participation rate of persons with disabilities (PWD) is significantly lower than persons without disabilities. There are more than one billion PWDs in the world and constitute a source of talent for employment towards the development and offering of products and services. The challenges faced by this population in contributing equally in our society has implications not only to our economies, but also human rights, equality, equity, and diversity. Intellectual Merit: The workshop is innovative in that it is forward-looking (pre-emptive as opposed to reactionary) in creating a research agenda encompassing various emerging and expected developments in technology in conjunction with human factors, and social and behavioral sciences. In addition, by taking a comprehensive and universal design view, it plans to consider all the major disabilities (vision, hearing, cognitive and intellectual, physical and mobility, and combinations of these. The workshop will focus on developing specific assistive technologies to be designed to integrate PWD in future workforce and the associated education and training initiatives that will be required. The project will be informed by participants that span nonprofits serving PWD, employers of PWD, workforce training institutions, national disability inclusion advocates individuals with disabilities, researchers from academia and industry. Broader Impacts:Societal broader impacts include: 1) development of work tools and technologies (and associated tech transfer), that increases the workforce participation and productivity of people with disabilities and the general population; and 2) creation of a model for other similar future efforts (beyond work) to address disability inclusion.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.