“Technology to drive full inclusion” was not only the title of the EBU/UICI TechFair, held in conjunction with the 11th EBU General Assembly in October 2019, in Rome, Italy, but its fundamental mission. The fair was aimed to set up a focus point where delegates from all over Europe and locals could visit the stands of technical aids manufacturers and distributors with their cutting-edge equipment. At the same time visitors had the opportunity to explore the many aspects of inclusion tackled by a number of Italian non-profit institutions that take advantage of that technology or resort to craftsmanship to create “treasures” fostering the inclusion of visually impaired persons by making it possible for them to enjoy art, science, leisure activities and so on.
This way visitors could get familiar, on one hand, with the new Braille embossers by INDEX for home and professional use, the advanced magnifying devices with built-in automatic reader distributed by Voice Systems, the tactile paving with RFID tags by JKJ, the beacon orientation system by ITCares, the smart white cane jointly developed by UICI and the SCEN company, the Dolphin computer interface and screenreader, the En-Vision America equipment to make medical prescriptions accessible, the Nattiq technology combining Braille and a Windows computer in one box, the new embossing features of the products distributed by Harpo, Braille displays and other reading systems by Help Tech, the wearable AI camera device distributed by Vision Dept, the accessible TV by the EASYTV Consortium and the new folding desktop magnifier by Humanware.
On the other hand, visitors could discover art by touch, thanks to the copies of sculptures from the Omero Museum and the “translation” of paintings and other images in 3D products from the Anteros and Tolomeo musems. Visitors also appreciated the relief maps and other 3D reproductions with a new printing system from the Multimedia Tactile Centre, the Braille books of the National Library for the Blind, the tactile books for children and other adapted educational materials from the Italian Federation of the Institutions for the Blind, a whole handmade accessible astronomy course by Unione Astrofili Italiani and the activities carried out by IRIFOR about training and rehabilitation of visually impaired people and research about blindness in Italy.
"We were very pleased to be exhibitors at the Tech Fair during EBU General Assembly in Rome, where we could get in touch with delegates from all over Europe, but also get the chance to start positive synergies with the Italian no-profit organisations, which showed to Europe Italian wit and creativity" - said Sandra Mauri from Voice Systems.
As a further demonstration of the synergy between industry and the non-profit sector that was at the heart of the TechFair, it was the INDEX company who kindly printed, on-site, in cooperation with their local distributor Voice Systems, the Assembly Resolutions for delegates.