The EBU Podcasts

EBU has produced different podcasts on issues related to our community.

• The new EBU In Action podcast, about the current most important issues for visually impaired people across the continent.
• The EBU Access Cast from 2018-2021, concentrated on accessible technology issues.
• The Awareness Raising podcasts, from 2021-2022, created in the Framework of the PARVIS project.

EBU In Action

• Episode 8 of EBU in Action (September 2024) A special focus on the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.It is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 8 is available (pdf file).
• Episode 7 of EBU in Action (April 2024)  This episode focuses on the 2024 EU elections. It is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 7 is available (pdf file).
• Episode 6 of EBU in Action, (March 2024) In this segment, we cover the main highlights of our 12th General Assembly that took place in February 2024, including a recap on the situation of blind and partially sighted people in Ukraine, a keynote conference on artificial intelligence and the results of EBU's Board Elections. 
  It is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 6 is also available (pdf file).
• Episode 5 of EBU in Action (December 2023) We learn more about the EU Disability Card Proposal from the European Commission with Antoine Fobe, our Head of Advocacy and Campaigning, and with Claire Damilano, Senior Legal Manager at the European Civil Action Service (ECAS). We also speak to Dorota Krać, from the Polish Association of the Blind. This is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 5 is also available. (pdf file)
• Episode 4 of EBU in Action (September 2023) Social Media - difficulties and opportunities for disability organisations. Natalia Suárez (European Disability Forum) and Ville Lamminen (Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired) share with us the challenges and opportunities of Social Media for disability organisations. We also speak to Madeleine McNamara, from Vision Ireland. This is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform.
  A transcript of episode 4 is also available (pdf file)
• Episode 3 of EBU in Action (June 2023) We have a fruitful discussion with Jude Stern (IAPB) and Kave Noori (EDF) about the challenges and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence for persons with disabilities. We also talk to Anđela Dragović about the situation of visually impaired people in Montenegro. This is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 3 is also available (pdf file)
• Episode 2 of EBU in Action (March 2023) We discuss with Bart Simons (EBU's representative in ANEC) and Javier Pita (CEO of NaviLens) about the different ways to make information of consumer products accessible. Furthermore, we also learn about the latest news from DBSV with Reiner Delgado. This is also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 2 is also available (pdf file)
• Episode 1 of EBU in Action (December 2022) In the first issue of our new podcast, we concentrate on Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, and also talk with Francesca Sbianchi, from our Italian member UICI to learn more about the current issues for visually impaired people in Italy. This also available on the Apple Podcasts platform. A transcript of episode 1 is also available (pdf file)

The EBU Access Cast

From 2018 to 2021 EBU decided to create a regular monthly podcast on technological accessibility innovations and products. Happy listening!

LATEST NEWS -  In a great new development, the team has made it possible for all episodes to be accessible via a dedicated youtube channel! (05/05/2021)

• Episode 35. Welcome to the last edition of the EBU Access Cast for 2021. Stay tuned till the end because we prepared many nice things for you and if you stay listening, you will hear surprising announcement at the end, but check out all the lastest technology and gadget updates! (December 2021)
• Episode 34. Welcome back in the 34th episode of the EBU Access Cast, as always, we provide you with the news around assistive technology and accessibility. This episode, hosted by Paweł and co-hosted by Tanja, Mario and Hlynur contains big amounts of news from the Big companies out there, impressions of technology we have ourselves tested and a nice demo at the end so tune in and enjoy! (November 2021)
• Episode 33. Welcome back to the 33rd episode of the Ebu Access Cast.In this episode Hlynur, Mario, Tanja and Pawel cover a wide range of topics regarding accessibility, from Pawel’s birthday present to himself to a new software suite that turns up Mario’s cravings for cheesecake to the maximum… and everything in between. Listen now for all this and much more! (October 2021)
• Episode 32
  The EBU Access Cast is back with episode 32, with lots of new technology updates, for iOS15 and Windows 11, for example, but much more; check if out now! (August 2021)
• Episode 31
  The last episode before the summer break (21/06/2021) includes a Special interview for you about Navilense, and all the usual gadget and technology updates. Enjoy listening and have a great summer!
• Episode 30
  Welcome back to the 30th episode of the EBU Access Cast, (05/05/2021) the big THREE ZERO! In this episode, Hlynur makes his debut as a lead host, joined by the always charming Tanja, Mario and Pawel. We covered a lot of current issues... everything from binaural recordings of a volcano in Iceland to an audio version of an IKEA catalogue, and much more! In a great new development, the team has made it possible for all episodes to be accessible via a dedicated youtube channel!
• Episode 29
  The latest and 29th EBU Access Cast (16/03/2021) in which the team, hosted by Pawel and co-hosted by Tanja, Mario and Hlynur, looks back at the history of bluetooth technology and the naming of technological devices, but also forward to the new devices and technology coming onto the market which will impact lives in many domains. Enjoy listening to this varied new episode!
• Episode 28
  Welcome to the first EBU Access Cast of 2021 (02/02/2021)!
  The number includes comments and advice on the latest gadgets, including Pawel speaking about an unusual invention; a music pillow!
  Also mentioned are fixes, updates and new developments for various apps, and there is a discussion about facebook's new alternative text description feature, which moves on to discuss the accessibility of facebook more generally.
  And news from Iceland, where accessibility posters have been printed out as mousepads to be distributed to programmers, designers and staff working in the IT industry to remind them on basic accessibility recommendations.
  A great idea!
  Check out all this in detail in this new edition of the EBU Access Cast.
• Episode 27
  Welcome to the last EBU Access cast of 2020, (01/12/2020) this edition includes a new participant, Hlynur Þór Agnarsson from Iceland. The team looks at lots of new goodies, very useful for those thinking of Christmas presents!
  They then move on to some technical innovations and updates, including Android Talkback, also an important new device developed by our UK member, RNIB, which allows blind women to take pregnancy tests in privacy, they also look at envision glasses, and much more, so tune in and check it out. EBU and the whole team wish you a happy Christmas and a much better 2021!
• Episode 26
  Welcome back to this month's edition of the EBU Access Cast (01/11/2020), as always packed with the latest assistive technology news and gadget discussion. Our content in written form is in our transcript, check it out now for lots of exciting new technology updates!
• Episode 25
  Welcome to the 25th transcribed episode of the EBU Access Cast (02/09/2020) podcast about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted people!
  We would like to remind you that from the previous Episode our podcast Comes with the transcript, so if you have any problems with getting our audio content, you are more than welcome to read it. All this and more in the 24th episode of the EBU Access Cast!
• Episode 23
  Welcome to the latest number of the EBU Access Cast (05/06/2020).
  We are happy to say that from now on you are able to listen our podcast with the transcript which will bring better inclusion to all the listeners with different disabilities, so if you want to read what we said, head over to it!
  Lockdown measures are being eased further after 3 months of restrictions and most of us have been teleworking in that period. Owning a decent headset with a good microphone is important for virtual meetings. We talk about the new features in iOS 13.5 and the Apple Exposure Notification System which lets apps from public health authorities and governments worldwide help people figure out if they've been exposed to COVID-19, and if so, what steps to take next to minimize the spread of the virus. For all this and much more, tune in to the latest EBU Access Cast!
• Episode 22
  Welcome to the May edition of the EBU Access Cast (01/05/2020)
  We kicked off this one by holding a small exchange of Android apps between Mario and Paweł including email clients and useful Wear OS apps. We then discuss all that is new and accessible in the latest release of Chrome marked with the version number 81. Apart from browsers, both of the popular Windows screen readers, NVDA and JAWS, have had their latest versions released recently as well.
  An episode recorded in May would not be complete without mentioning the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, celebrated on the 21st of this month. As always it is full of various events and activities most of which will be held online this year and so many more of you will be able to attend. Discussing accessibility gave us a chance to wonder how accessible COVID-19 contact tracing apps in different countries of Europe might be and whether this is a reliable solution in its current form.
  All this and much more in this new episode!
• Episode 21
  Welcome to the 21st EBU Access Cast (April 2020)
  The current situation caused by the spread of the novel Coronavirus has impacted our lives in multiple ways, especially so in the case of people with visual impairments. It is therefore difficult to escape this subject completely. The news, however, will definitely be useful in coping with the new reality of self-isolation, social distancing and working remotely. To cover the most frequently asked questions, the EBU has compiled a list of resources where the advice from different national partners regarding mobility, everyday life, safety and help, is provided.
  We also mentioned some of those general tips and tricks that will let you stay safe as well as discussed campaigns of the disability umbrella organizations started to ensure that whatever strategy is applied to combat the virus in the different European countries, their disabled citizens will be a part of it. All this and much more in our latest edition!
• Episode 20
  Welcome to the 20th episode of the EBU Access Cast. (March 2020) We have come to the 20th episode so far, and we would like to thank you for listening to us. We are preparing some nice goodies for you for the future episodes, but new surprise will be coming to you soon. In the meantime, let's check what's going on in these dark times which hover around the world. As the Corona pandemic is taking over the Europe and rest of the world, lots of jobs are transferred to teleworking. We did research to see how it affects the tech giants and assistive tech industry in general and how the whole situation affects the state of accessibility in different environments.
• Episode 19
  Welcome to the 19th edition of the EBU Access Cast! (February 2020)
  This number features information on the Focus 40 Blue 5th Gen refreshable braille display from Freedom Scientific, a new version of NVDA, Microsoft Edge updates, as well as many more technical updates. There is also an item on the Microsoft Accessibility Webinars.
  Check out the new podcast for all this and much, much more!
• Episode 18
  Welcome to the 18th EBU Access Cast! (January 2020)
  We made some improvements in our podcast since 2020, and that means from now on our podcast supports the chapters Section, which means that if you want to listen something that specifically interests you, you can directly skip to your preferred chapter in your favorite podcast Player. The chapters do not work directly if you are listening the podcast from the web Player, therefore this is another reason why it is better to subscribe to our podcast directly from the podcast players such as Apple podcasts on iPhone or Podcast adict on Android platform. Check out the podcast for all the latest news, including exciting stuff for musicians!
• Episode 17
  Welcome to the latest episode of the EBU Access Cast, (December 2019) and as it happens the last one for the year 2019 and the teens of this century. As Christmas is drawing closer, we began this episode with some tech gadget Christmas gifts discussion. Wear OS smartwatch and shared his experience of setting it up for the first time. As far as EBU's work is concerned, there is an interview with our Head of Campaigns, Antoine Fobe, on the Marrakech treaty campaign. Also featured in the Access Cast, updates for music lovers, attempts to solve the problems of inaccessible touchscreen-based payment terminals, and BeMyEyes offers advice for art and museum fans… but there is much more, so don’t hesitate to listen to the full EBU Access Cast!
• Episode 16
  Welcome to the 16th episode of the EBU Access Cast. (November 2019) The European Blind Union held its 11th General Assembly in Rome on October 27-30. Bart was invited to record a special edition of the podcast. He spoke with the outgoing and incoming Presidents of EBU, Wolfgang Angermann, and Rodolfo Cattani, as well as with its Executive Director Mokrane Boussaïd who is about to retire. He also interviewed the exhibitors in the tech fair. The assembly was held with the generous support of Google.
• Episode 15
  Welcome to the 15th episode of the EBU Access Cast. (October 2019) This month we commented the iOS 13 accessibility improvements and new bugs that came with the new iOS. We are disappointed that the official release brought so many accessibility issues and we hope that Apple will fix them soon. listen in to hear lots more information!!
• Episode 14
• Welcome to the 14th episode of the EBU Access Cast! (September 2019). After our summer holidays Mario, Tanja, Bart and Pawel are back with you and as always, we have quite a lot to say for this month. Bart got himself a new pair of Bose frames which represent the alternative to the well-known aftershockz boan conduction headset, and he shared his Short Review on them. Mario also bought a new tuner for string instruments, called Roadie Bass. The tuner is very accessible for partially sighted community as well as blind musicians, because the end user is able to make all the presets thru an app on the phone, and then sync all the settings with the tuner via bluetooth. And lots more in the news section!
• Episode 13
  Welcome to the 13th episode of the EBU Access Cast, (July 2019) hosted this time by Paweł who is joined by Tanja, Mario and Bart to discuss all that happened in July in assistive technologies. Including talk of accessible airports, information on the AVAS system for electric vehicles, and all the latest tech updates.
• Episode 12
  Welcome to the 12th episode of the EBU Access Cast.( June 2019). We decided to refresh the way the podcast is presented, so from now on every month you will hear somebody different from our team who will be the main host for the episode. In the June episode Tanja took the position of the captain and she is joined by Mario, Bart and Pawel who became our newest team member.
  This time we are bringing you accessibility news from the Apple conference WWDC 2019. In its opening Apple announced that technology is the most powerful when everyone can use it and they clearly showed their commitment by presenting plenty of new accessibility functionalities on Apple devices that we can expect from this autumn.
• Episode 11
  Welcome to the 11th EBU Access Cast. (May 2019) This time we have a special episode on Sight City 2019 and we talk about all interesting techy goodies we saw at the conference. At the beginning of the episode you can listen to the interviews which Mario and Tanja prepared, and then after Mario, Tanja, Bart and our special guest Paweł Masarczyk who is a well-known podcaster from Poland in the Tyflopodcast discuss all about the things they saw at the Sight City.
• Episode 10
  Welcome to the 10th episode of the EBU Access Cast. This month, April 2019, the tech news focuses on VoiceOver’s new accessibility events option, Voice Dream scanner, NVDA update and Android Accessibility Suite’s update. We also talk about the SightCity exhibition and the forthcoming European elections. Finally, you can listen to 3 interviews from professionals.
• Episode 9
  Welcome to the 9th episode of the EBU Access Cast. March 2019 was a busy month with a lot of news regarding assistive technologies. In addition to presenting new gadgets, Tanja, Mario and Jakob talk about screen readers recent updates, playing on Android and with your Google home and living in a smart and accessible city. And do not miss the interview of Alejandro Moledo from the European Disability Forum on the upcoming European Accessibility Act!
• Episode 8
  Welcome to the 8th episode of the EBU Access Cast. (February 2019) This time Mario, Jakob, Bart and Tanja prepared lots of goodies for you from the news section, and we achieved our own personal record in amount of demos prepared for our podcast. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mr. Daniel Montalvo who sent to us 2 demos about amazon Echo which we are publishing in this episode, and you can hear also the demo about Google Interpreter at the end of this podcast.
• Episode 7
  Welcome to the 7th EBU Access Cast, (January 2019). We decided to make some changes and refresh our team with new people. Therefore from now on we have a new person who will bring girl power into our team. We wish a warm welcome to Tanja Kleut who is an accessibility specialist at the European parliament, and who joined Mario and Jakob in this episode.
• Episode 6
  Welcome to the 6th episode of the Ebu Access Cast. (December 2018). As this is our last episode before we go on the short vacation, we would like to wish you all the best for the upcoming holidays, and that Mr Santa brings to you a bunch of the assistive tech devices and gadgets under the Christmas tree. Jakob and Mario are recommending a few gadgets to purchase for the Christmas, and for the end of the podcast Mario shared the audio tip for Android users how to turn off Picture in picture mode which can be a litle frustrating when Android is being used from the blindness prospective.
• Episode 5
  Welcome to the fifth episode of the EBU Access Cast, released on 20th November 2018. Welcome to the newest and fifth episode of the Ebu Access Cast. After one month period of silence during October due to a few technical problems and Jakobs trip to the Amazonian forests, we are back to bring you the newest content from around the globe from the assistive industry, and boy boy, we have a lot of interesting things to say this time. If you stay with us until the end of the news announcements, you will be able to hear our surprise demonstration about the new product, which is hitting our blindness, and sight impaired community like a storm these days. We received our first contribution from one of our listeners from Denmark which means that our podcast is being listened and followed, so we'd like to say once more thank you, Keep sending us your feedback, we are looking to expand our podcast even more in the future.
• Episode 4.
  Welcome to the fourth episode of the EBU Access Cast, released on 20th September 2018. After a very hot summer, our team is back with the newest news reports from the assistive tech industry. However before we get into the newest updates we would like to notify our listeners that from now on our podcast is available on the iTunes as well, so anyone who is using their favourite Apple gadget or smart speaker such as Google Home is finally able to hear us and listen to our show when and where ever you want. To find us on the iTunes you can visit the following link:
• Episode 3.
  Welcome to the third episode of the EBU Access Cast released on 23 July 2018. In our final episode before the summer break Jakob Rosin and Mario Percinic are joined by Bart Simons from Belgium as our third member of the team who gave us one more opinion about the upcoming stories which we prepared for you this time.
• Episode 2.
  Welcome to the second episode of the EBU Access Cast released on 20 June 2018. Hosts Mario Percinic and Jakob Rosin prepared a bunch of news from the assistive tech industry, and at the end of the Podcast, you will be able to hear a short demonstration about Google Home.
• Episode 1.
  The first episode of the EBU Access Cast, was produced in May 2018. Our hosts today in the first episode, Mario Percinic and Jakob Rosin, introduce themselves and then later talk about a few things which occurred during last week in the mainstream tech portals as well as a few others which happened in the assistive tech industry.

It is also possible to manually subscribe to the EBU Access Cast and listen to it with your favorite player of choice for the podcasts by the RSS feed)